Abstract
In June 2014, the oil price began an unpredictable steep decline after more than three years of being over the barrier of the 100 USD/Barrel (Brent). By the end of that year, the commodity lost 43% of its market value, reaching at the beginning of 2016 a minimum value of 27.88 USD/Barrel (Brent). The purpose of this paper is not to explain the forces that determine the price of the crude oil, but the question is: How many companies were prepared in June 2014 to face a 75% reduction in the value of their projects? How many of them could be defined as resilient organizations, with the ability to "survive adversity and to thrive in a world of uncertainty?"1
There is a valuable bibliography related to Reservoir Management, defined as the process that "optimizes the interaction between data and decision making during the life cycle of a field".2 Nevertheless, this position assumes that the top management has already decided the group of projects to carry out. The first pillar is missing: how to build a portfolio that enables executives, given a specific scenario, to select the proper combination of projects and to truly execute the optimal strategy for the company. While Reservoir Management works on each project separately, Portfolio Management brings the systemic approach in "understanding and exploiting the interplay among both existing and potential projects"3
This paper put forward the Balanced Scorecard and the Strategic Map applied to Portfolio Management as the nexus between Portfolio and Reservoir Management, and as the tools that enable executives to select the best strategy to cushion market volatility and translate it into actions.
