Collaboration is key to future success

In a bid to help drive this forward, the OGA has published its Collaborative Behaviour Quantification Tool (CBQT) with supporting guidance. Developed with industry to provide an assessment of collaborative behaviours, it covers areas such as negotiations, ability to learn and share experiences, and constructive and flexible attitudes to change.

He continued: ‘Improvements in company commercial behaviours make a fundamental impact on maximising economic recovery in the UK (MER UK) and underpin our vision for the UK’s oil and gas industry.’

Following a successful pilot with Chevron North Sea (CNSL) in 4Q2016, CBQT will now be undertaken by operators and the OGA every two years, starting in 2017. Under CBQT, operators may be requested by the OGA to submit an improvement plan within six months of the review, which will focus on improvement of collaboration behaviours.

Greta Lydecker, Managing Director, CNSL, commented:  ‘A commitment to real collaboration across the UKCS 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 behaviour. 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 Behaviours Work Group, (now known as the Commercial Managers’ Forum), which brings commercial managers from E&P companies together from across the industry to provide leadership for developing and embedding the collaborative commercial behaviours needed to deliver MER UK efficiently. Specific initiatives being led by this group include the updated 2016 Commercial Code of Practice (CCOP), new industry guidelines on negotiations best practice and the introduction of a standard form desk-top study agreement.

This year, the group is refreshing the Infrastructure Code of Practice (ICOP), producing a standard form Offshore Access/Study Agreement and embedding measurement of commercial behaviours performance. All are designed to facilitate delivery of MER UK.

Mike Tholen, Upstream Policy Director with Oil & Gas UK, said: ‘The Commercial Managers Forum serves a vital purpose as we maximise the value opportunity through collaboration. We are confident that the Collaborative Behaviour Quantification Tool will demonstrate the success of this new way of working.’