Word to the Wise: How drilling companies can benchmark to win more business

January 23, 2019

In this week’s Word to the Wise, we look at how drilling companies can differentiate themselves by their benchmarking performance against other drillers.

Each week at XI Technologies, we scan our unique combination of enhanced industry data to provide trends and insights that have value for professionals doing business in the WCSB. If you’d like our Wednesday Word to the Wise delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe here. 

Oil price volatility since 2014 has had a tremendous impact on drilling activity and drilling contractors across the WCSB. The Canadian Association of Drilling Contractors (CAODC) drilling forecast for 2019 continues to project relatively flat growth, with an increase of just 0.7% over 2018 in terms of the number of wells to be drilled.

When drilling activity decreases, the competition gets fierce. Over the past four years, drilling and service rig operators have examined every internal cost to keep rates lower, maximize cash flow, and maintain profitability without impacting service, safety, or performance. Don’t price yourself out of business. Differentiate yourself by demonstrating your superior operational performance.

Benchmarking performance against your own drills is one easy way of showing potential customers how good you are, how well you learn, how you’ve improved, and what they can expect from you in an area. But how do you compare to the competition? Until now, benchmarking your drills against those of other drilling companies hasn’t been easy. But it’s a sure-fire way to show potential customers your true value and potentially release you from the trap of selling solely on price. Performance delivers value, and value beats price.

XI Technologies has developed a way for drilling contractors, drilling engineers, and drilling managers to quickly and easily compare and benchmark the performance of multiple drilling companies operating in a common area. The workflow utilizes XI’s OffsetAnalyst software and Drilling Database of close to 200,000 digitized tour sheets from over 70 oil and gas companies, plus supplemental information from the different government boards in Western Canada. A simple benchmarking exercise that takes minutes can pay big dividends for all concerned.

Watch the following video to see how it’s done. If you’d like to benchmark your drilling company, contact XI.

How Drilling Companies Can Benchmark Themselves Against Other Drillers from XI Technologies on Vimeo.