| Business intelligence or more popularly known today as | | | | troubleshooting on upstream assets, monitoring and |
| business performance management system used to | | | | incessant production planning. Oil exploration demands |
| be restricted to the territories of the chief financial | | | | real time visualization and monitoring of operation that |
| officer of an oil exploration company. The other key | | | | will help key persons in fast decision making and |
| persons granted access to these intelligence data in | | | | analysis. And it has never been truer today, as oil |
| the company were the E&P, accountants and | | | | exploration becomes more remote and more |
| financial analysts. The purpose of having such business | | | | challenging. Data from different locations and multiple |
| intelligence and performance management systems | | | | departments need to be processed fast. What took |
| was to be more efficient in handling resources, reduce | | | | weeks and days before, now only takes minutes to |
| cost and augment return on investment. But as the | | | | measure. |
| operation of the oil company grows, its demand for | | | | There are generally three areas of an oil exploration |
| integration of data for operation and finance has also | | | | project, where metrics play an important role. The |
| increased. There are now more people, in the | | | | three areas where potential metrics can be drawn are |
| company than ever, who are in need of greater | | | | costs and expenses, revenue and realization and |
| access to these data. A new approach in business | | | | production. Under the costs and expenses aspect, the |
| intelligence has now become the driving force of these | | | | following are the most common key indicators: ad |
| companies; this is called the oil exploration metrics. | | | | valorem taxes, lease operating costs, work over costs |
| The principles behind the new metric for oil exploration | | | | per boe, lifting costs per boe and lifting costs. This |
| are basically the same as those traditional business | | | | aspect has the least number of metrics however |
| intelligence tools. The improvement is found though on | | | | tracing the cost of the operation is just as important as |
| the presentation side. See, as the company grows, its | | | | tracing how profitable the exploration is. |
| volume of data also expands. Data like power | | | | Under the revenue and realization aspect, the following |
| computation and surveillance instrumentation need to | | | | metrics indicate good and bad performance: profit - |
| be processed efficiently and intuitively using cost | | | | noe, oil per barrel, gas per $ Mcf, net processing |
| effective visualization techniques. These visuals will | | | | income, lease income, oil sales and gas sales. Under |
| then become available not only to accountants, CFOs, | | | | production, the following serve as metrics: well |
| CEOs and financial analysts but also to operators, | | | | downtime, water cut, well tests, well head pressure, |
| geoscientists and engineers. Everyone is a cog in the | | | | gas oil ratio, liquids yield, water produced, overall daily |
| wheel in an oil exploration venture; that is why | | | | and monthly oil production. |
| everyone should be given access to these | | | | The impact and importance of oil exploration metrics |
| overwhelming yet critical data. | | | | have dramatically improved over the last few years. |
| The metrics for oil exploration today covers not just | | | | No longer will engineers and accountants wait for |
| the financial side. There are essentially three decisive | | | | weeks to analyze and come up with good decisions. |
| factors that will lead a company to producing more oil | | | | With these metrics, analysis of engineering and financial |
| and spend fewer resources be it financial or | | | | data is now made real time. |
| non-financial. These factors are constant | | | | |