Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – Britain’s Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) has called for increased collaboration between UK offshore licensees and other joint venture partnerships.
As a result of the maximizing economic resources (MER UK) strategy, collaboration on theUK shelf has become a statutory obligation.
OGA has now published a collaborative behaviour quantification tool, developed with the industry and covering subjects such as negotiations, the ability to learn and share experiences, and constructive and flexible attitudes to change.
Following a successful pilot with Chevron North Sea late last year, other operators have agreed to work with the OGA to implement the tool every two years, starting in 2017.
The OGA may request these operators to submit an improvement plan within six months of the review, which will focus on improvement of collaboration behaviors.
Greta Lydecker, managing director, Chevron North Sea, said: “A commitment to real collaboration across theUKCS will help reduce costs and create opportunities throughout the value chain. The challenge for operators is that collaboration can have different interpretations and to make meaningful progress in this area requires clearly defined behavioural expectations and leadership to set the right culture.
“Our experience in piloting the tool is that it provided a robust framework to evaluate the quality of our collaborative behavior. We found the structured dialogue sessions to be a highly valuable exercise to validate assumptions and to identify opportunities for improvement. Importantly for us, it was an efficient and effective process that was outcome focused.”
In addition, the OGA has been supporting the Oil & Gas UK Commercial Managers’ Forum, which brings together commercial managers from E&P companies to help drive the collaborative commercial behaviors said to be needed to deliver MER UK efficiently.
Initiatives undertaken by this group include the updated 2016 Commercial Code of Practice, new industry guidelines on negotiations best practice, and the introduction of a standard form desk-top study agreement.
This year, the group is producing a standard form Offshore Access/Study Agreement, among other measures.
04/20/2017
