ARPEL conducted the workshop "How to remain profitable in an environment of low oil prices," which brought together professionals from 17 companies with the purpose of sharing and discussing different alternatives taken by the companies to operate in a new scenario of prices.

Oil prices have shown a sharp drop since 2014, reducing the margins and thus forcing the industry to restructure and reinvent itself to sustain operations and investment levels.

During the workshop, held in mid-November in Lima, Peru, the cost optimization schemes used in some companies were presented, and it was agreed that the strategy should be participatory, including operational areas, but with a strong leadership at the highest level.

The professionals underlined that there must be a change in the way of thinking, placing more emphasis on efficiency than on effectiveness, generating a culture of continuous improvement, and that the real challenge is to ensure the sustainability of the optimization programs.

"In times of crisis, it is important to be resilient, which implies changing the way in which things are done at every level, working on the structures of costs, organizations, processes, and also standards and procedures,” the experts pointed out.

Within the agenda of the workshop, some solutions were shown for integrated management of the lifecycle of reservoirs. Regarding this point, emphasis was placed on the importance of working in cooperation in the decision-making between operators and service providers of oil wells, and focusing on technology. It was also mentioned that most research and development is done by service providers, and that the challenge is to integrate a multidisciplinary team to address technological issues and financial management simultaneously.