Business Intelligence Energy, Resources and Utilities

Energy and Utilities companies use business intelligence software to accurately forecast energy and utility demand, maximize production, and assess risk in an increasingly competitive, high cost, and fluctuating industry. The energy industry, like most others, is beginning to use business intelligence (BI) technology to aid management analysis and decision making.

Energy and Utility Demand Forecasting Minimize energy costs and ensure service availability by accurately predicting energy and utility demand based on past results and data mining projections Couple research of alternative energy sources with analytics to monitor global energy and utility demand vs. distribution, promote the use of renewable energy, and develop sustainable distribution models

Oil Production and Reserve Analysis Maximize oil production by tracking monthly, annual, and cumulative production data, and comparing revenue vs. cost for individual wells and fields Improve the ability to estimate the amount of Original Oil in Place (OOIP) throughout production to determine whether to continue to use, replace, or abandon a reserve Ensure maximum accuracy and profitability from exploration ventures by reviewing production trends and forecasting availability

Risk Assessment and Management Optimize trade ROI by identifying profitable commodity trading partners, reviewing key trends, and allocating capital appropriately Effectively gauge the risks involved in energy trading by analyzing predictive models and risk-reward curves

Asset Optimization and Maintenance Conduct thorough reporting on energy generation and outages to better manage field employees, minimize unnecessary equipment usage, and resolve issues as quickly as possible Track asset usage, efficiency, and outages to determine which equipment requires preventive maintenance or replacement

Operations and Customer Service Improvement Streamline call center management, optimize response times, and reduce costs by analyzing wait times, operational inefficiencies, and hourly call center activity

Industry Applications of BI : The primary application of BI in oil and gas companies is to help management consolidate operations and cut costs. The basic goals have been to shorten the time required to create reports and analyses, improve the accuracy of information, and create a single information repository. The most common application areas for BI have been to provide financial reports and analyses and support business operations with a special focus on ERP.

Industry Applications of BI : There are several applications of BI in public utilities today. The most common are operations- focused support of finance, customer service, and enterprise reporting. For the most part, utility companies are using BI to deliver information that shortens reporting times, consolidates data across the business, improves customer service, and assists overall business operations.

BI is used on a very limited basis in public utilities. Few utilities seem to use BI tools and technology on their own and those that do use it to create operational reports and standard queries. In general, while some companies are using BI diligently, there are significant opportunities to apply BI in the utility industry today. Using BI to understand business operations, control costs, and manage rates and pricing are applications that can provide value to any public utility.

Industry Applications of BI: Oil field services, engineering, and construction use BI for financial analysis and control, cost containment, and project tracking. It is important for the upstream services part of the business (as it is for oil and gas companies) to analyze field production volumes, production leases, market prices, and production expenses. Downstream services (as with oil and gas companies) analyze supply chain performance, work management and capital investment strategies.

Cont. These companies deliver services on a projects or contract basis. Financial and project tracking are cornerstones of the business and BI technology is used mostly for financial analysis. Project tracking, work analysis, and knowledge management are opportunity areas for BI in the non-trading part of the energy services industry.