Transformation
-
Read MoreOW Insights The Rise Of Regional Oil Markets The United States is transforming itself into the world’s largest oil producer. -
Read MoreOW Insights The New Balance Of Power In Oil North American oil producers are experiencing widespread pain as a result of rock‑bottom oil prices. -
Read MoreOW Insights The New Make Vs. Buy Calculus The days of the traditional electrical power utility are numbered. Disruptive forces – a combination of supportive government subsidies and advances in technologies such as micro combined heat and power boilers, solar photovoltaics and battery storage – are making it relatively easy and cost-effective for people in developed countries to unplug from the grid. Yes, fossil fuel prices have fallen, but photovoltaic and battery storage prices are also dropping quickly. -
Read MoreOW Insights The World Energy Trilemma Energy sustainability is not just an opportunity to transform societies and grow economies, it is also a necessity.
Strategy
-
Read MoreOW Insights Empowering utilities Driven by the rise of new energy technologies, climate change and fluctuating energy demands, utility markets in developed economies are undergoing rapid and radical changes in direction. -
Read MoreOW Insights Power generation disruption Energiewende (or “energy transition”) is one of Germany’s largest ongoing projects: a paradigm for the rapid and disruptive changes that many electricity markets are now facing or soon will face, as regulatory and consumer pressures to reduce fossil fuel usage grow and the costs of renewables-based generation continue to fall. -
Read MoreOW Insights The industrialization of commodity trading One after another, the commodity trading industry’s traditionally leading independent traders have been increasingly stagnating as the prices of everything, from copper to crude oil, remain stuck at rock-bottom levels. By contrast, the world’s slow-moving top asset-backed trading giants are announcing rock-solid trading results. -
Read MoreOW Insights The mexican retail fuels revolution As Mexico deregulates its oil and gas industry, the country represents an enormous opportunity for retail fuels marketers and service stations. Mexican fuel consumption is forecast to grow by roughly 3 percent annually, twice as fast as global demand growth and at a higher rate than the top five fuel-consuming countries.
Operations
-
Read MoreOW Insights Shale 2.0 In the first phase of the shale revolution, North American shale drillers catapulted the UnitedStates to one of the top oil producing positions in the world, upsetting a global balance of power in oil that had prevailed for decades. -
Read MoreOW Insights What oil and gas companies can learn from the shale revolution Shale drillers are forging new operating models that will continue to challenge the conventional practices of the oil and gas business in a number of key areas. At first glance, these operating tactics may appear more relevant for managing a Silicon Valley startup than for running an oil and gas company. Like many high-tech startups, shale drillers manage a rapidly changing set of daily activities and must continuously improve technologies across widely dispersed assets and supply chains to remain competitive. -
Read MoreOW Insights Beating The Hiring Cycle In the past 12 months, oil and gas companies have been forced to do an about-face and shift from preparing for a shortage of experienced employees to shrinking their abundant workforces. -
Read MoreOW Insights Why north american utilities are a smart bet The warnings of competitive threats to the US utility industry have sounded as the new smart electric network begins to evolve and develop and new distributed solar and wind generation finds traction in the market.
Risk
-
Read MoreOW Insights Cyber-Risk Management Energy companies are suffering from an increasing and unprecedented number of cyberattacks. The most alarming example so far: a malware attack in 2014 that compromised the operations of more than 1,000 energy companies in 84 countries, including the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey and Poland. This cyber campaign, reportedly waged as a means of industrial espionage, gave hackers the ability to cripple wind turbines, gas pipelines and power plants at the click of a mouse. -
Read MoreOW Insights Defusing the Decommissioning Time Bomb Oil and gas companies have installed thousands of structures offshore in the earth’s oceans, and the time is quickly approaching for those wells, pipelines and other pieces of equipment to begin coming out. -
Read MoreOW Insights Electricity Storage Technology Although solar power has been ballyhooed as the reigning threat to the traditional utility revenue model, there is a stealth disruptor lurking in the wings: electricity storage. New and more economically priced technology can store enough electricity to power a home or business for a few hours. That’s long enough to disrupt the peak demand charges business model many utilities rely on for their cash flows. -
Read MoreOW Insights Liquidity Risk International conflicts, an uncertain global economy, and volatile stock prices are prompting management teams to examine whether they would fare better in a liquidity crunch today than they did when the financial crisis struck seven years ago. -
Read MoreOW Insights The Big Squeeze in Oil Field Services Since the collapse of global oil prices, oil field activity (both ongoing and planned) has decreased dramatically: Global exploration spending has contracted by almost 25 percent, the equivalent of $120 billion, due to delayed or cancelled projects. Additionally, global rig count – the key indicator of level of future exploration activity – has shrunk by 43 percent over the past 12 months.