HSB Solomon Associates LLC (Solomon Associates®) provides data-driven, strategic insight across the energy industry, leading to greater efficiency, reliability, and profitability for our clients.
We use the only global, proprietary, extensive database of historical and today’s operational performance data combined with industry best practices and experts to deliver benchmarking studies and consulting services across the oil and gas value chain. This combination allows us to identify operational gaps, deliver insights and propose solutions to close operational gaps resulting in sustained performance excellence.
Solomon Associates® is part of the HSB family of companies and serves clients in nearly 80 countries, with global headquarters in Dallas and regional offices in Houston, London, Manama, and Singapore.
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Our People
Helping our clients improve performance is a team of Solomon experts that have deep and extensive hands-on industry experience. Our consultants have walked in your shoes and understand your business. Each of our consultants average 25+ years of experience in operational roles with some of the top energy companies in the world. This high-level of experience helps to ensure that we deliver practical and actionable insight that you can trust.
OUR STORY
During his employment with Exxon (now ExxonMobil), Mr. Lee Henry Solomon conducted statistical analysis and research for a method that would allow direct operating performance comparisons of oil refineries with different configurations, equipment, and auxiliary process units. His work was an extension of earlier work by Dr. W. L. Nelson, who had developed refinery “complexity factors” based on capital expenditure that were published in a series of articles in The Oil & Gas Journal in the early 1960s.
Lee later ventured out on his own with his method of “equivalency factors.” He first joined forces with Turner & Mason (now known as Turner, Mason & Company), which briefly became Turner, Mason & Solomon. He left Turner, Mason & Solomon and founded his own company, Solomon Associates®, in 1981. The following history of the early days of Solomon was taken from the “Refinery Study Perspectives” paper issued in April, 1997 entitled “The Basic Elements of Refinery Performance Measurement”:
“In the late 1970s, the principals at Solomon Associates® conducted a small survey of refineries in the United States to identify the range of performance currently experienced within the group. That effort led to the development of Comparative Performance Analysis™ (CPA™) techniques based on the concept of EDC®. EDC® was defined as a standardizing dimension which incorporated capacity, the effect of multiple units,
and, in the absence of actual industry data, approximated process complexity based on early Nelson factors.
As industry participation in the CPA™ studies grew, it became evident that more advanced refinery processing units employing higher-pressure catalytic facilities, unique electronic instrumentation, computer control, and more sophisticated construction materials identified shortcomings in the early complexity factors. In early 1983, we examined our industry database of more than 100 refineries (primarily in the USA) and addressed some of these deficiencies. By testing the old capital-based complexity factors against performance parameters for energy use, unit staffing, maintenance practices, and overall cash operating expenses, we produced a set of ‘improved’ complexity factors."
The development of these improved complexity factors established a methodology for which Solomon Associates® has been awarded patents, and many of Solomon’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been trademarked and registered with the U.S. government and other government entities worldwide. This methodology would prove to be a solid base from which Solomon Associates® launched a full portfolio of multi-client CPA™ studies covering the oil and gas industries from upstream wellhead, through midstream pipelines and terminals, to downstream fuels, chemicals, and polymers.
Tribute to Our Founders
Lee Solomon, founder of Solomon Associates®, and Paul Ziff, founder of Ziff Energy Group, both prominent
figures in our company's history.