Open letter: Operational Excellence in Oil & Gas

To all the Foremen, Superintendents, Vice Presidents of Operations and Production out there,

What lies ahead for the future of Canada’s oil and gas industry as our labour shortage increases and we shift to a net-zero future?

We’re at a pivotal moment for oil and gas operations.

Producers today must deliver economical production, strong environmental performance and keep frontline workers safe even as the workload and data load they face grows. And this pressure on our industry will not lighten.

This is a moment of huge opportunity. As long as we address the need for change honestly. We need to take the guesswork out of operations by consolidating data, using it to optimize efficiency, and guiding workers to do the highest value, safest work.

I have enormous passion for Canada’s oil and gas industry.

I became an operator in the field in Alberta as a teenager. Then I built a contract operations company, and now I also lead a team delivering oil and gas operations software.

My whole career I’ve been obsessing over finding efficiency in oil and gas operations. Now I see the opportunity to go beyond working lean.

I believe Canada can lead the world in providing the most responsible, most profitable and best managed hydrocarbon production. But to get there we have to overcome a people problem – a frontline workforce problem.

When I think of what I want for my son, I’m not sure I would recommend working on the oil and gas frontline, today. Field life needs to change. Head office teams need to better understand what’s happening at the frontline from the oilfield through to point of sale. We need to connect workers to new tools to help them perform optimally and safely.

At our industry frontline, we’ve got people in an impossible situation – overloaded with data and disjointed communication which they cannot humanly process. Working in this state is leading to errors in decisions that can cost production, economic waste, create emissions and at worst, safety incidents.

Meanwhile producers face avoidable production losses with unnecessary downtime, OPEX overspending on chemicals and maintenance, unnecessary trips to the field, and inconsistent ESG monitoring and emissions that cause risk and reporting issues as we strive to demonstrate responsible compliance.

There is a proven way forward for the industry. The solution is almost always the same – we need to consolidate data, optimize how we analyze that data and give oilfield workers, truckers, plant workers, the people working on the oil and gas frontline easy-to-use guidance to take the best action for economical, responsible and safe production.

We need to align activity at the frontline with our industry goals and empower our people to help lead our industry towards a more efficient world.

We see this as achieving Operational Excellence and we’re all in to make it happen. If you’re also committed to change, reach out to me anytime.

Brandon Ambrose