Recognising the Need for Professionals with Broad-based Skills and Experience in the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry
Dr. David Wood
January 2002
Many upstream oil and gas activities require the integration of a wide range of business, technical and inter-personal skills if they are to be progressed successfully. Exploration and Production is a high-tech industry, but technical experts alone cannot achieve its desired outcomes without a considerable appreciation of economics, risk, fiscal, strategic, corporate, global, cultural, negotiation, joint venture, financial and accounting issues. On the other hand, non-technical professionals are also poorly placed to make decisions on the majority of upstream projects without an ability to understand beyond the superficial the underlying technical issues and risks (i.e., geoscience, engineering and technological).
The above statements will appear self-evident to those who have worked in the international E&P industry in a range of capacities. However, key decision-makers and board members in many E&P organisations (including private, publicly quoted and state-owned corporations) seem to have relatively narrow specialist backgrounds (e.g., engineers, accountants, lawyers) with limited experience or training in many of the other key skills mentioned above. Such organisations and individual decision-makers often rely on subordinate technical staff or consultant specialists to fill their knowledge gaps. There is also a common corporate misconception that by filling a board or management committee with members representing a range of professional skills that their collective knowledge will lead to well-balanced and technically and commercially sound decisions being made. The uneven distribution of power and control in most professional committees and corporate structures - and the human failing in most individuals that makes us reluctant to admit to our peers of shortcomings in our skills and experience relative to key issues means that knowledge and understanding are often shared imperfectly amongst groups of professionals assembled to make decisions.
This situation has been exacerbated in recent years by downsizing and training/hiring freezes of professional staff that have hit most E&P organisations. As a result, many organisations now have a younger, less experienced professional workforce specifying a narrower more-specialist focus for many technical professionals (e.g., work-station "jockeys") and limited exposure for non-technical professionals to the technical nuts and bolts underpinning the industry. The question that needs to be urgently addressed is how are the decision-makers of the future to gain the desired breadth of skills and experience that E&P decisions demand?
As a consultant to the industry, a former senior executive to a range of E&P organisations and an experienced training provider, the author strongly advocates the need for broad-based industry-focused training for specialist E&P professionals in preparation for future management roles. This can be provided effectively and efficiently in short courses (2 to 5 days) designed for multi-discipline / multi-cultural groups to maximise the interchange of knowledge and experience from both course provider to delegate and from delegate to delegate.
The Oxford Princeton Programme's Exploration and Production Management courses are an integrated set of modules outlining a clear competency path involving a wide range of technical, commercial and management themes with an international focus.
