Discover sustainable business performance tailored to your specific offshore assets’ challenges and opportunities.
To survive the current oil price volatility, operators look to contain cost increase and maintain high operational reliability. While cost control is always a robust strategy, there is also the need to balance it with the principles of Operational Excellence. Solomon’s Worldwide Offshore Production Operations Performance Analysis (Offshore Study) can provide this balance and help successfully position your company to exploit the current market.

Recent Offshore & Onshore Project Worldwide
With 30+ years of upstream benchmarking experience and the world’s largest database of upstream performance data and metrics, Solomon knows what “good” looks like for any given type of operation. The Offshore Study assesses your performance against peers and identifies cost and production improvement opportunities. The study focuses on critical KPIs, including operating cost, cost drivers, production efficiency, and uptime reliability.
Solomon’s experts understand that production is not the main offshore cost driver; unit costs do not indicate how efficient an operation is. Our proprietary normalized cost analysis (cost competitiveness) levels the playing field by considering the size and complexity of each asset, providing a better identification of efficient operation and realistic improvement opportunities. The normalized cost-efficiency assessment works to identify performance gaps between the asset and peer group leaders to provide potential cost optimization opportunities.
Aggressive Cost Cutting Lead to a Billion-Dollar Loss for a Major GOM Upstream Operator
The Offshore Study analyzes both cost and production uptime performance at the asset level for several offshore production facility types. This “asset-to-asset” comparison enables true identification of the areas where your facilities could improve.

Peer Groups Based on Major Offshore Asset Types
The Offshore Study measures asset performance by analyzing your offshore operations, transportation activities that support those operations, offloading operations (tankers excluded), and overhead (management, technical, business support). This analysis enables a consistent and reliable basis for managing continuous improvement.
- Carbon Emissions Index (CEI)
- Energy Intensity Index™ (EII®)
- Well Servicing
- Surface Repair & Maintenance (SRM)
- Support/Overhead Costs & Staffing Levels
- Operating Cost Competitiveness & Cost Efficiency Analysis
- HSE and Process Safety Management (PSM) Performance Analysis
- Cost Performance (operating cost, maintenance cost & complexity, labor cost, transportation cost (i.e., helicopter and boats), energy efficiency)
- Production Performance (production efficiency, reliability, planned and unplanned downtime)
- Prioritize Performance Improvement Efforts
- Performance Assessment/Monitoring
- Tactical/Strategic Planning
- Reliability Assessments
- Energy Initiatives
- Staffing Levels
- Custom Peer Groups
- Capital Project Performance Targets
- OpEx Prediction & Forecasts
- Financial Institutions
- Shareholder Needs
Learn More & How You Can Participate
Obtain a clear picture of your competitive position with data-driven, actionable insight.
Join other industry members that leverage the Offshore Study to guide them to higher levels of sustainable business performance and create informed robust operational strategies.
Companies that participate in Solomon’s Offshore Study typically realize:
5-15%
operating expense savings.
“The result of this study is very helpful; we can see the weaknesses & opportunities to improve, such as boat cost.” LOGISTICS MANAGER, US MAJOR
“The value for changes we implemented was estimated at $5,000,000, a very good return on investment.” SENIOR ENGINEER, U.K. MAJOR
“Immensely impressive…much more detailed than other benchmarking studies.” PRESIDENT, U.S. MAJOR
“The Offshore Study results are one of the best study reports we have received.” VP OPERATIONS, ASIA MAJOR
Why Participate?
- Compare with top-industry peers
- Assess the effectiveness of your operating cost-cutting strategy
- Define robust strategies and tactics to deliver sustainable performance and costs
- Pinpoint “cost drivers” for each asset type
- Refine sustainability measures of carbon emissions and energy efficiency
- Analyze uptime reliability performance issues on a consistent basis across companies and assets
- Determine turnaround performance
- Formulate expense optimization plans to eliminate shortfalls
- Establish performance targets and measure progress
Study Deliverables
Study participants receive the following:
- Executive summary presentation with actionable insight supported by study data
- Customized diagnostic analysis, including conclusions, recommendations, and valued opportunity potential for each asset
- Private debriefings with Solomon operations advisors
Data Quality, Benchmarking Methodology
A Foundation for Effective Comparative Performance Analysis and Decision Support
We prioritize the integrity and confidentiality of participant-submitted data and rigorously review that data before benchmarking begins. Then, we employ our normalization process and benchmarking methodology to provide valuable and trusted peer group comparisons that deliver meaningful KPIs. Finally, our staff of senior consultants apply their deep industry experience to develop practical insight and recommendations to enable your success.
Upstream Operator Reduces Risk and Increases Confidence in OpEx Budget for New Gulf of Mexico Project
Solomon’s New Project OpEx Estimator improved and validated the accuracy of the client’s OpEx
estimates and established valid and achievable targets for future asset operations.