Strategy Consulting for Oil & Gas

For a US energy company, I valued an acquisition target with natural gas assets. The $1.5 billion valuation was substantially more than the then market capitalisation, and the client decided not to pursue the opportunity. The target was acquired shortly thereafter (by someone else) for a price close to the suggested valuation.

I brought rapid clarity (in just 28 days) to a European oil company which had struggled for two years with the decision whether (or not) to close down a refinery operation. The client team had been paralysed by the complex and interwoven impact on the company’s Europe-wide network of operations. Although finely balanced, the decision to continue operation overrode the management’s base case and added €30 million in value.

For a leading independent oil company, I developed and modelled several alternative end-game strategies for its assets in the North Sea (total value approx $400 million) and facilitated senior management to make its choice in the context of the global asset portfolio and corporate cash flow needs.

For an offshore engineering company, I identified and evaluated the drivers of value and risk in its worldwide portfolio of assets and recommended a strategy to refocus on its core technology base, adding $35 million in shareholder value.

For the downstream arm of a major oil company, I developed an integer programming approach to analysing their portfolio of capital projects, in the face of a very complex tax regime. This resulted in a significant reallocation of resources, a higher return on investment and a new system for project appraisal.