U.S. oil and gas production growth from shale development since 2005 has fundamentally changed global energy markets, reversing historical import and export flows, adding new basins and introducing a host of new service providers and competitors. The rapid production growth has resulted in infrastructure constraints to move oil and gas to downstream markets and export locations. This growth creates great opportunities for midstream companies equipped to respond to the market’s demands.

While the midstream industry has invested heavily in pipe, compressors, pumps, trucks, rail cars and tanks, it has underinvested in the processes, technology and personnel supporting the assets. The resulting impact from the underinvestment include:

• High G&A support costs that scale linearly with volume growth vs. providing efficiencies;
• Silos of data with no easy insight for responsive decision-making; and
• Low employee morale and high turnover due to being overworked with no improvements in sight

The tools exist to overcome these challenges, but to be successful, companies must set aspirational goals and build a culture of continuous improvement that includes not only their employees but their service providers, customers and field operations. Midstream leaders of today and tomorrow drive value and innovation by investing in:

Collaboration - Shared production forecasts and operational status by E&P operators improve gathering and processing performance by midstream operators and oilfield service companies.

Integrated Transaction Management - Digitize transaction management for pipelines, terminals, fractionators, and other assets integrating field measurement and operations with commercial activities.

Optimized Logistics - Optimize scheduling, dispatch, pricing and invoicing processes through a digital ticketing platform driving collaboration between truck, rail, barge and pipeline logistics and commercial users.

Analytics-Driven Decision-Making - Provide commercial, market and operational insights to constituents to optimize asset performance. 

Enterprise Risk Management - Risk measures generated from multiple data sources present a holistic view of market, credit and operational risk.