Cross-industry collaboration ‘crucial’ to future success on UKCS, survey says

A recent collaboration survey conducted by Oil & Gas UK, a representative body for the UK offshore oil and gas industry, and Deloitte has shown that nearly all (98 percent) respondents see collaboration as ‘crucial’ to their future success.

Oil & Gas UK said on Tuesday that the ‘UKCS upstream supply chain collaboration survey’ asked British and Dutch operators and suppliers about their experiences working alongside other companies operating in the North Sea.

The survey is the third in a series of surveys carried out by Deloitte to gauge the effectiveness of industry efforts, supported by Oil & Gas UK’s Efficiency Task Force (ETF), to improve cross-industry collaboration.

Nearly nine out of ten (86 percent) respondents stated that collaboration had become an integral part of their everyday business – a 12 percent increase when compared to the previous year.

Other results of the survey show that both operators and suppliers reported higher levels of successful collaborations than the previous year where 40 percent of respondents were satisfied with the quality of collaboration compared with 27 percent last year.

The largest number of respondents said that cost reduction remained the main reason for collaboration although collaboration between Dutch operators and suppliers is focused on optimizing capabilities (29%), whereas in the UKCS operators are more focused on collaborating to reduce costs (36%).

Stephen Marcos Jones, director of business excellence at Oil & Gas UK, said: “While it’s encouraging to see that the industry is now really on board with the importance of collaboration, we have just cleared the first hurdle and there is much more work for us to do.

“To see truly sustainable change, we need to look beyond collaboration to cut costs towards projects driven by innovation, knowledge sharing, and a desire to work smarter and more efficiently.”

Bevan Whitehead, Oil & Gas Leader at Deloitte, said: “The results of our latest survey suggest that the industry has taken a considerable step forward toward improving supply chain collaboration in the past 12 months.

“A huge opportunity for real transformation remains if companies can take the next step and embrace radical changes in how they work together to build efficient, sustainable and long-term businesses in the UKCS.”

In total 107 people from across the oil and gas industry responded to the survey, providing 464 pieces of individual feedback, four times the amount of data than the previous survey. Forty percent of respondents came from operators, while sixty percent came from suppliers, and there was an even split in responses across functions, with non-management engaging with the survey at the same rate as management.