Challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, complex new energy policies and historic levels of inflation have created challenging conditions for oil and gas companies over the past two years. There is mounting pressure on E&Ps to produce in more efficient and environmentally sound ways, without sacrificing bottom line performance, even as demand for oilfield services continues to outpace supply, driving OFS costs higher and higher. Meanwhile, supply chain, operations, finance and accounting teams must find ways to handle more work with fewer resources.
With all these compounding factors at play, what can oil and gas companies do today to relieve their teams of unprecedented pressure while delivering maximum value to shareholders both now and into the future?
This fueled much of the discourse at Enverus’ 18th annual SPARK Conference in San Antonio, Texas.
At last year’s event, employees from diverse E&P, OFS and midstream companies took the stage in a series of customer-led sessions to share how they’ve been automating processes and streamlining workflows to create synergies across supply chain, operations and finance and accounting teams. SPARK 2022 also showcased the latest Enverus source-to-pay innovations in sessions led by our in-house product experts, giving attendees a sneak peek into upcoming innovations in oil and gas source-to-pay solutions. Finally, keynote presentations focused on macro trends impacting oil and gas professionals today and the role of technology and innovation in navigating some of energy’s greatest challenges in 2023 and beyond.
Let’s look back at the biggest takeaways and announcements from SPARK 2022 that oil and gas professionals can use in 2023 to achieve leaner, more efficient oil and gas operations in the face of extreme inflation and volatility.
- Investment in technology, data and analytics is key to accelerate the speed of operations and make impactful decisions.
- Operations professionals are looking to digital field tickets for enhanced tracking, validation, approval and compliance.
- New solutions for strategic sourcing and contracting will help address supply chain challenges and tightness in OFS markets.
- Oil and gas companies are adopting end-to-end digitalization of the source-to-pay process to combat double-digit inflation.
1. Investment in technology, data and analytics is key to accelerate the speed of operations and make impactful decisions
In today’s environment of extremes — extreme volatility, extreme inflation, extreme pressure to deliver competitive shareholder returns — technological innovation is crucial as oil and gas companies continue to look for ways to achieve leaner, more efficient operations.
“Our industry still struggles with laggard technology that prevents accelerated operating efficiency,” says Enverus President Manuj Nikhanj. “You need to know where to focus and implement change.”
The themes shared in these opening remarks carry strongly throughout the 2022 SPARK Conference sessions. From customer-led sessions to keynote presentations, the message is clear: Investment in technology, data and analytics is key to accelerate the speed of operations and make impactful decisions.
Specifically, investing in a comprehensive, connected, energy-dedicated source-to-pay platform that unlocks advanced insights into data will enable oil and gas companies to see greater efficiencies and productivity. The following clip offers a look into the possibilities that become available to operators with the right technology and data solutions in place.
Your SPARK 2022 playlist: Technology, data and analytics
For industry professionals looking to get a deeper understanding of how technology, data and analytics solutions can be leveraged by oil and gas players to strengthen performance amid current market conditions, we recommend watching the following session replay:
- Driving Value From Data: Weaponizing Data to Fuel Your Value Chain: In the current environment of cost inflation and supply chain constraints, the cornerstone to a successful operating strategy is your spend data. But data without context can be dangerous. In this session, we demo our OpenInsights solution, provide more context to the data and show you how you can access this spend data and unlock its value to go from supply chain to value chain.
2. Operations professionals are looking to digital field tickets for enhanced tracking, validation, approval and compliance
Whether you work in accounts payable, D&C operations or LOE operations, paper field tickets create headaches such as lost tickets, delayed approvals, error prone manual entry and unnecessary time spent “pushing paper.” For operator field supervisors in particular, the sheer volume of tickets being submitted for review and approval can be overwhelming. Meanwhile, audits continue to reveal that suppliers are overbilling.
To help all parties overcome these challenges, Enverus created OpenTicket — a cloud-based digital field ticketing software solution that enables operators and service providers to generate, review and approve digital field tickets for faster invoice approvals and payment. OpenTicket Mobile’s GPS and geofencing capabilities provide visibility into work done on site, including work done at remote and unsupervised jobs sites, with detailed views of routes and hours spent on the entire job.
Digitalizing oil and gas field ticketing with OpenTicket also unlocks advanced project spend insights, and its seamless integration with Enverus OpenInvoice makes OpenTicket the only oil and gas field ticket and invoice platform with automated reconciliation and compliance for a completely digital, end-to-end review and approval process compliant with accounting standards.
“OpenTicket makes everyone feel more accountable to what they’re approving.”
— Christina Barela, business integrity and vendor compliance at Diamondback Energy
As the need to do more with less continues to be a common theme for energy companies, digital field ticketing offers oil and gas companies an opportunity to relieve operations and accounting teams of busywork so they can focus more time and energy on high value activities, while integration with the OpenInvoice platform unlocks additional functionalities that can help prevent rogue spend and offer advanced project spend insights.
Your SPARK 2022 playlist: Digital field ticketing
For those looking to simplify the field ticketing process, gain additional insights into work performed or accelerate the invoicing process while reliving accounts payable teams of unnecessary and time-consuming manual tasks, we recommend starting with the following session:
- Easy Work Validation With Mobile Job Tracking: Tracking and validating unsupervised labor used for production operations has been a challenge both before and after digital field ticketing. In this session, the newly released OpenTicket Mobile application is demonstrated. See how GPS tracking, geofencing and additional alerts can expedite tracking and approval of digital field tickets.
3. New solutions for strategic sourcing and contracting will help address supply chain challenges and tightness in OFS markets
At SPARK 2021, transforming supply chain into a strategic source of value through improved processes and cost efficiency was top of mind for many companies as they grappled with the first waves of pandemic-induced supply chain shocks. Not surprisingly, transforming supply chain into a strategic source of value remained a strong point of discussion at SPARK 2022 as companies face record-breaking inflationary pressures and tightness in OFS markets.
“Operators need sourcing strategies that increase efficiency for fiscally sustainable growth.”
— Dan MacDonald, senior director of Source-to-Pay at Enverus
To that end, exciting new advancements in oil and gas procurement software are already helping operators and midstream companies streamline processes and improve efficiency. With simplified ordering, end-to-end spend visibility and automated workflows and compliance checks, procurement automation solutions such as OpenOrder makes it easy for oil and gas companies to create and process purchase orders and work orders for dispatching services and ordering materials. At the same time, advanced spend analytics become available to these teams to help them make faster, more strategic decisions.
Your SPARK 2022 playlist: Strategic sourcing and contracting
To hear more from customers and Enverus’ product team about the latest solutions for smart sourcing, contracting and ordering, check out these SPARK sessions on the Enverus Knowledge Hub:
- From Field to Finance: Faster Visibility Into Operations: Connecting the field to the office to gain more accurate, up-to-date visibility into operational spend was a key objective for one of our clients. Learn how we worked together to deliver streamlined job and dispatch management in this client-led case study session and gain insight into the future roadmap for these solutions.
- From Point A to Point B: A Preview of Digital Inventory & Material Transfers: Flexible and robust materials management forms a new pillar of our expanding Source-to-Pay solution. Take a closer look at the capabilities that we’re building alongside customers to improve the visibility and tracking of materials and assets throughout their lifecycles and see a demo of our new inventory and material transfer application, including a preview of the upcoming operator mobile application.
4. Oil and gas companies are adopting end-to-end digitalization of the source-to-pay process to combat double-digit inflation
Companies who choose to digitalize the end-to-end source-to-pay process on a fully integrated cloud-based platform will be best prepared to navigate current and future disruptions in the energy ecosystem, such as the astonishing levels of inflation we’re experiencing in the aftermath of the global coronavirus pandemic. From accounts payable automations to supply chain innovations, full source-to-pay digitalization on an energy-dedicated platform unlocks opportunities to create more value with fewer resources.
“There is an opportunity that many energy companies haven’t fully tapped into that could and would have a profound positive impact on your operating efficiency and bottom line — digitalizing the entire source-to-pay process.”
— Colin Westmoreland, chief innovation officer at Enverus
Your SPARK 2022 playlist: Energy-dedicated source-to-pay
To see how all the solutions and themes we’ve discussed today can be brought together in a single, energy-dedicated source-to-pay platform to streamline processes across supply chain, operations, finance and accounting for improved efficiency, compliance and performance, we recommend starting with following session:
- Innovation Acceleration: Source-to-Pay: The complexity of the energy industry requires a comprehensive, connected source-to-pay platform, and we are bringing it to life! Join our leadership team as we share an update of the vision and roadmap.
There’s more to explore
From industry-wide challenges to new product roadmaps for supply chain, operations, finance and accounting on the ever-expanding Enverus source-to-pay platform, to customer-led presentations that shed light on the onboarding experience and ongoing benefits of Enverus Source-to-Pay solutions — SPARK 2022 offered tremendous value for oil and gas companies looking to achieve leaner, more efficient, more profitable operations in 2023 and beyond.
While we tried to pack as much value into this one blog post as we possibly could, there is still so much more to explore. For the full menu of on-demand sessions from SPARK 2022, head over to the SPARK 2022 sessions hub today.
