Today's operating environment faces a rising tide of stakeholder scrutiny, increased drilling and operating costs as well as rising cost of capital. Many large institutional lenders and insurers are protecting the risks to their own bottom lines by assuming proactive stances on industry best practices and the reputational capital of companies seeking project funding. This re-pricing of risk carries the potential to significantly impact the ability of asset owners to finance major, capital-intensive projects. Deepwater organizations are being challenged to take a more critical look at how risk management, HSE performance, organizational culture, and asset management are central to sustainability performance and securing their license to grow.
Global markets have consistently demonstrated a preference for corporations with a strong record of health, safety, and environmental performance. In addition to being a powerful source of market differentiation, sustainability performance can also help manage critical Non-Technical Risks (NTRs). The identification and early management of NTRs, such as community-related issues and sensitive environments can significantly improve NPV and an asset owner's ability to operate in critical areas of market growth. These same NTRs can account for up to 70-75% of cost and schedule failures in major oil and gas projects in the form of project delays and cost overruns, lost deal opportunities, and host of stakeholder-related issues.
As investor scrutiny escalates in response to billions of dollars lost to Net Present Value (NPV) erosion, compounded by the Macondo incident, the need to better manage Deepwater non-technical performance has abruptly escalated. To address both internal organizational change and deliver on non-technical performance, we have found that NTR is best managed and owned by the line with support from NTR functional expertise that is integrated with the language of the business and a strategic internal organizational change management process. Now is the time to relook at how Deepwater organizations are lined up to address their NTRs, by correctly:
Balancing short-term versus long-term business needs
Integrating technical and non-technical risk management
Making informed non-technical decisions grounded in facts
Addressing internal organizational interfaces and fragmentation
Through this approach, this paper will outline how the management of these sustainability issues can be a net contributor to a company's competitive advantage by proactively managing NTRs and ultimately lowering the cost of capital.
