By Dave Waddington
Global Market Leader for Offshore Production
GE Power Conversion
The question: as oil and gas exploration and production moves into deeper and more hazardous environments, what role do suppliers play in ensuring these areas can be exploited efficiently, safely and cost effectively?
The answer: Integration. Making sure that the way we work is evolving in parallel to technology matching the efforts and resources required to make our offshore oil & gas customers successful. Greater localization and partnerships coupled with a greater focus on regional roles and responsibilities are just a few of the practices that are changing the way the industry works. In GE, we are taking a one-stop shop approach to provide an integrated solution to customers.
Integration of technology
Take the power system as an example: the three main pillars (power generation, power compression and power distribution) are currently dealt with by different contractors, each providing their own expertise to a single piece of the jigsaw puzzle. The intertwined nature of this work gives rise to a hugely expensive and complex process of coordination, which in turn creates financial risk should project delays be encountered. With the rising ambitions of new oil and gas exploration sites, it seems that the stakes are only set to get higher.
Looking at some of the long-term projects on the horizon within the context of an integrated approach, we see that integrated components will drive the initial capital cost down while system optimization safeguards availability and uptime of the operation, helping shipyards and owners to save both time and money. Simply put, dealing with one single source of supplier facilitates the procedure, the process and potentially leads to simpler and faster system integration, therefore a quicker delivery with lower risk.
In an industry where downtime can cost over a million dollars a day, a reliable and efficient power solution coupled with an integrated approach has the potential to save companies tremendous amount of money. That is exactly why at GE we have solved this problem for our customers by taking an integrated approach – the latest launch of GE Marine is the best proof to show our strong commitment to this approach.
The rules of the game are already beginning to change. Yesterday's solutions aren't going to answer tomorrow's challenges. Today, contractors increasingly approach suppliers as strategic partners invested in their success, not only bringing critical components to a project but also key project management skills. It's becoming crystal clear that the companies with the brightest prospects will be those capable of offering a one-stop shop for both.
