How to Understand Your Oil Sands Client

After working within the oil sands majors, I know what a budget owner should think. Oil sands companies hold and spend billions, but how they do it changes significantly from year to year. Some years, the number one priority is cost savings; another year, it's higher capital spend or higher oil production, regardless of cost.

From the outside, it's difficult to understand what large oil sands corporations' strategies are in this particular year. As a service company, a good strategy would be to provide options. Ask the clients: Would you like to spend more on this line item that's "nice to have" currently, however can bring significant reliability improvements in 5 years?

As an example, tailings management is the one priority that's "hot" every year. Billions are being spent, and oil sands sites are hungry for more tailings solutions.

The way owners look at most things is in terms of risks and opportunities. Can your company reduce the risk of their department running out of tailings space? They'd be very interested to talk to you if you can. At the same time, you need to be prepared to have a conversation on the risks of your solution. It won't be a good outcome if your technology suddenly makes the tailings pond unusable.

The same mindset applies to almost any offer they get. What are the cybersecurity risks of your software? How many near misses and incidents were your welders involved in last year? I was in those meetings, asked and answered those questions, and during this process you develop the sense of site ownership. If you don't ask the right question and it goes unchecked, kilometers of pipe can fail from corrosion.

As a service company, understanding their pain and stakes can put you far ahead of your competition. I saw dozens of sales presentations from vendors. Preemptively having the risk questions addressed in your material can leave more time for the higher value specific discussion with the client.

The competition is going up in the oil sands industry due to the recent major spend approvals. However, so is the opportunity. What you did yesterday might not work tomorrow. Understand your strengths as of today. My target is to bring justified changes to adjust what you are already doing so it's more attractive to your clients. If you want an owner's read on your material before your client gives you one, I can help.