Here's how you can navigate barriers to entry and gain a competitive edge in the oil and gas sector.

One thing I have found a requirement in Oil and gas, it's essential to see the present trends of the governed policies w.r.t the giving emphasis and investments to other sources of energy like, solar, wind, electric, etc. If policies indicate reliability on oil and gas more, then large investments can be attempted.

Understanding the local regulatory environment and process is vital to an operator's success. Ignorance leads to misfilings, lost time, lost money and additional scrutiny. In my experience, it is much more cost effective to hire a consultant familiar with the process than to stumble along blindly.

Asset Retirement Obligations or Decommissioning Obligation are among the most common regulatory requirements that E&P companies leave their environment almost as pristine as how they met it. Earlier this year the US Office of the Interior came up with an additional layer(apart from Bank or financial guarantee) to this requirement that ensured that E&P companies have enough reserves as a condition for the sale or transfer of oilfield assets to another entity. A good understanding of ARO requirements and international marine laws ensures that an E&P company makes adequate provisions/funding available through a sinking fund. Some courts have ruled that there is always a reversion risk even when an oilfield asset has been sold to a third party.

Technological advancements have already been significantly made, however more emphasis should be made to Geomechanics to reduce sanding in produced hydrocarbon.

Partnerships in the industry could be lateral where different E&P companies from different regions of the world come together to explore hydrocarbons in a particular country. This ensures that lesser-endowed E&P entities are in alliance with super majors like ExxonMobil with exclusive rights to some IPs in the industry. Partnerships could also be vertical where an E&P company may partner with an oil services technology company for instance GNPC/TechnipFMC to accelerate the training of technical personnel, like engineers, to improve drilling efficiency and chances of discovery. This helps control drilling/operations costs to make the E&P company more profitable while assuring the technology company of a good source of business all the time.

In my experience, O&G ventures are mostly JVs because they are capital-intensive and risky and require different companies to pool their resources. Successful E&P companies must build their internal financial reserves to be able to grow because that is what they need to start exploration. Financial institutions usually shy away from funding exploratory ventures. Once discovery is made financial institutions/Banks are prepared to grant facilities to develop the oilfield using reserve-based lending(RBL). Another important element of financial planning is Taxation this is because the fiscal policies of the host government can determine whether a project will be profitable or will have a healthy cash flow over its production cycle.

One thing I've found helpful in the industry is that they do a lot of on-the-job training, especially in the EHS space where people from other backgrounds could be trained to become competent EHS officers. This is great because EHS record is a reputation-enhancing KPI. The recruitment of expats can be quite expensive so this approach helps when the E&P company finds itself in a country where there are not many local talents as it helps to control the wage bill. A company with a good local content plan can successfully transfer knowledge to the indigenes of a country which reduces the overall wage bill and makes them manage other personnel-related G&A costs. This helps the company to be in the good books of the host government.

I believe this is a good initiative by LinkedIn to tap into the expertise of various O&G professionals for the benefit of all--I have been publishing articles/newslet on accounting and finance specific to the Upstream Oil & Gas sector for the past 2 years to add value to the community. First of all, in my opinion, the badge name should rather be "Top Oil & Gas Voice" and not necessarily Top Petroleum Engineering Voice because the industry has other professionals like Accountants, HR officers, etc. who contribute to the success of the industry. Secondly, I believe that your AI articles must distinguish between the Downstream and the Upstream oil & gas sectors because they are quite different with different Sustainability Reporting standards.