Uma nova realidade para cadeias de compras e suprimentos de petróleo e gás

Tempos sem precedentes pedem medidas sem precedentes. Os operadores de petróleo e gás estão se recuperando dos efeitos da pandemia e também de Preços do petróleo em colapso . Além disso, os bloqueios mundiais e o fechamento de fronteiras estão dificultando a capacidade dos fornecedores de serviços e equipamentos de campos petrolíferos (OFSE) para entregar a tempo e o orçamento.

Muitas empresas estão entrando nessa crise mais fraca do que nunca. Apesar disso, os operadores de petróleo e gás exigem que os fornecedores reduzam os preços e estão reduzindo as despesas operacionais e de capital, como fizeram durante o declínio dos preços de 2014. Tais medidas tradicionais podem fazer com que as empresas de suprimento falsassem, dizimando as capacidades vitais da indústria e prejudiquem a capacidade dos operadores de petróleo e gás de manter a produção.

Os operadores devem adotar uma abordagem dupla radical. No curto prazo, eles precisam tomar medidas para proteger as empresas dese e permitir que as cadeias de suprimentos do setor continuem funcionando. Supondo que o preço do petróleo permaneça abaixo de US $ 40 por barril e as interrupções na fabricação e logística causadas pela pandemia continuam, estimamos que quase metade de todas as empresas de porção-e até 90% dos serviços de serviço sísmico e 70% das empresas e 70% de que os operadores de sertores não podem ser usados ​​em que os operadores de tempo não implementam, e 70% de que os operadores de que os operadores não implementam e 70%. Oportunidade de transformar as relações comerciais a médio prazo e aplicar lições de outras indústrias, preparando-se para um ambiente iminente de preços de petróleo inferior mais baixo. Ao responder à nova realidade e fazer parceria seletivamente com seus fornecedores, as empresas podem criar resiliência e desbloquear economias consideráveis. 

At the same time, oil and gas operators should view the crisis as an opportunity to transform commercial relationships in the medium term and apply lessons from other industries in preparation for an imminent lower-for-longer oil price environment. By responding to the new reality and selectively partnering with their suppliers, companies can build resilience and unlock sizeable savings. 

Os fornecedores nunca foram tão vulneráveis ​​

Ofse Companies estão enfrentando um ambiente de negócios mais duro do que em qualquer crise anterior. Como resultado, vários fornecedores líderes já pediram proteção à falência. Para entender melhor as dificuldades que confrontam empresas, pesquisamos gerentes seniores em organizações de fornecedores de 125 níveis One, realizamos entrevistas com CEO em mais de 30 dessas empresas, realizaram análises financeiras de mais de 200 fornecedores e analisamos os gastos com as principais empresas de todas as águas. 2014, com juros mais altos que consumem seus fluxos de caixa. Ao mesmo tempo, eles tiveram margens de operação muito mais baixas, com algumas margens de fornecedores em território negativo. Crise. Muitos ainda estão usando as medidas tradicionais de corte de custos que usaram em crises anteriores. Mas desta vez, essas medidas não são apenas inadequadas para alcançar a profundidade dos cortes necessários para se equilibrar, mas também estão comprometindo a existência contínua de seus fornecedores. (Veja a Figura 1.) Consequentemente, os operadores terão que pensar e agir de maneira mais criativa para alcançar as economias necessárias.

Our key findings are as follows:

• OFSE companies had significantly greater leverage in 2019 than they did in 2014, with higher interest charges eating into their cash flows. At the same time, they had far lower operating margins, with some supplier margins in negative territory.
• Our analysis of different operating basins indicates that operators will need to reduce unit costs by 20% to 50% to break even.
• Four-fifths of OFSE suppliers have received requests from operators to cut prices by 20% to 25% during the current crisis.
• Tier one suppliers expect around 40% of their subsuppliers to face a significant risk of bankruptcy if the oil price is between $30 to $40 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Our findings indicate that operators are often failing to recognize the level of financial distress in their supply chains. Many are still using the traditional cost-cutting measures that they’ve used in previous crises. But this time, these measures are not only inadequate for achieving the depth of cuts needed to break even, but they are also jeopardizing their suppliers’ continued existence. (See Exhibit 1.) Consequently, operators will have to think and act more creatively to achieve the savings they require.

Fique à frente do jogo

Ordinarily, supplier distress is not a significant issue. Operators typically check OFSE companies’ financial details during the qualification process for new suppliers and before they award large contracts. And until now, operators have faced only a few instances of triggered force majeure clauses and supplier bankruptcies per year in various parts of the world. However, in the current crisis, which combines an oil price shock with pandemic-induced logistics and manufacturing disruptions, widespread supplier distress is a reality and large operators can face dozens of force majeure incidents and bankruptcies every month.

As a result, operators need a deeper and more forward-looking understanding of their suppliers’ financial health in order to anticipate and react quickly to potential problems. This is especially important when the suppliers involved are critical for business continuity.

Using financial metrics and analysis that create a more forward-looking picture allows operators to take a differentiated approach with their supply base, to use a broader and more collaborative range of measures, and to buy time.

Typically, most operators assess supplier risk by looking at a variety of financial metrics that are at least three months out of date. These include liquidity, debt-to-equity, and interest coverage ratios; credit ratings; and Altman Z bankruptcy scores. While these metrics were sufficient prior to the pandemic, they are no longer effective in today’s dual-shock crisis. At BCG, we have built a model to monitor the health of individual OFSE companies that starts with this information but then goes further, allowing us to predict future difficulties.

How the Supplier Risk Model Works

After assessing historical financial data, the next step is to get a better understanding of suppliers’ financial outlooks in light of industry dynamics. For example, by examining how oil price changes have impacted demand for various supplier services in the past, we can analyze the vulnerability of individual suppliers’ revenues in the current crisis. Using operator announcements, we can assess the likelihood of revenue losses for different OFSE categories in different basins. By examining market concentration for suppliers in different categories, we can determine any given company’s ability to absorb revenue declines and protect its margins. And by analyzing other leading indicators, such as rig counts and information about project economics in different basins, we can identify industry stress points. (See “OFSE Hotspots for Financial Distress”).

The final step involves modeling the ability of OFSE companies to respond to changing conditions. For this, we look at the following metrics:

• Caixa e equivalentes de caixa, que indicam se uma empresa possui reservas financeiras saudáveis ​​
• The proportion of variable to fixed costs, which show how flexible a company’s cost base is
• A company’s debt ratios, which indicate whether the business will generate enough cash flow to service its debt

Armed with this information, operators can more effectively head off potential supply chain problems. We have identified more than 30 measures that can help operators support their OFSE suppliers, but less than 20% of them are currently being deployed. Operators should turn to these measures, particularly with regard to the OFSE companies that are most financially vulnerable and are essential for continuing production, such as well and subsea services, maintenance, and transport and logistics suppliers.

Por exemplo, além de práticas padrão como estender as linhas de crédito e o fornecimento de garantias de que ajudam os fornecedores a acessar finanças externas, os operadores devem considerar o compartilhamento de capacidade de frete com fornecedores, ajudando a liberação de fronteira de fronteira para peças e peças de reposição e fornecer pagamentos iniciais para ajudar os fornecedores a financiar materiais de entrada. (Consulte o Anexo 2.)

But when considering mitigation measures to help suppliers through their financial distress, operators will have to strike a careful balance. For some categories—including engineering, procurement, and construction, which depends on large order volumes to support investment in technology and skills—they will need to allow for a degree of consolidation to enable players to create sufficient scale and improve plant utilization to survive in a more challenging environment.

By applying a wide range of measures across OFSE categories, operators will be able to stabilize their supply chains, address pressing financial problems among individual suppliers, and buy time for additional actions. Nevertheless, they will need to go further to foster innovation, structurally lower costs, and create a competitive advantage over the medium to long term. Our research and interviews suggest that developing strategic partnerships with a select group of suppliers will be an important way to achieve these goals.

Strategic Partnerships Are a New Imperative

“Never allow a good crisis go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible,” Rahm Emanuel, a US congressman and a former mayor of Chicago, has famously said. In the current crisis, operators and OFSE companies need to think ahead and create a new type of relationship that, over time, will enable players to survive in a low-price environment where margins are compressed.

Construindo relacionamentos profundos com fornecedores e a criação de valor holisticamente será uma característica fundamental da paisagem emergente. Estimamos que essas parcerias estratégicas de fornecedores podem gerar valor de 30% a 50% nos operadores ' Operações a montante , Bem acima da economia de 5% a 10% que os operadores esperam alcançar através das medidas tradicionais. As entrevistas que conduzimos indicam que os principais fornecedores da OFS já estão realizando discussões exploratórias com operadores sobre parcerias estratégicas.

A idéia de parcerias estratégicas não é nova; Considere, por exemplo, o automotivo e Indústrias aeroespaciais e de defesa . Com foco em valor e não apenas custos, os fabricantes de carros em todo o mundo têm melhoria de qualidade, despesas reduzidas, tempo acelerado para o mercado e alcançaram avanços tecnológicos, coordenando intimamente a manufatura com seus fornecedores e realizando P&D conjunta e planejamento ao longo de várias décadas. Novos fabricantes de veículos elétricos, por exemplo, melhoraram as parcerias estratégicas de fornecedores, tomando ações como simplificar e padronizar os processos de fabricação. No entanto, eles não decolaram. Existem três razões principais para isso:

The benefits of using strategic partnerships to generate value through more standardized and modular operations are widely recognized in the oil and gas industry. However, they have not taken off. There are three main reasons for this:

• Os operadores historicamente desfrutaram de grandes margens de lucro e se concentraram em aumentar a produção e as receitas - como empresas da OFSE, que estão mais focadas em custos e maximizar as margens, criando as diretorias de imóveis e os que são mais favoritos. Abordagens inovadoras exigidas por parcerias estratégicas. parcerias de outras indústrias e aplique -as a suas próprias parcerias. A crise atual oferece a oportunidade para os operadores e empresas de OFSE agirem de forma criativa para transformar seus relacionamentos. Parcerias estratégicas de petróleo e gás podem criar valor de várias maneiras. Além disso, acreditamos que, em mercados altamente regulamentados dependentes de petróleo, onde é necessária uma redução significativa nos custos da indústria para atender às metas de equilíbrio fiscal do governo, é imperativo que os reguladores revisitem seus requisitos de compras de compras e incentivem a criação de maior valor e a economia de custos para beneficiar as parcerias.
• National procurement guidelines have favored standard practices (such as the “three bids and buy” procurement method) over the more innovative approaches required by strategic partnerships.
• The oil and gas industry’s entrenched culture and ways of working (where operators effectively dictate terms to OFSE companies), along with the difference in cultural DNA between operators and OFSE companies, have prevented suppliers from collaborating with operators to innovate and create value.

We believe that oil and gas companies must learn vital lessons about supplier partnerships from other industries and apply them to their own partnerships. The current crisis provides the opportunity for operators and OFSE companies to act creatively to transform their relationships. Oil and gas strategic partnerships can create value in several ways. Furthermore, we believe that in highly regulated oil-dependent markets, where a significant reduction in industry costs is needed to meet government fiscal breakeven targets, it is imperative for regulators to revisit their procurement-competition requirements and encourage greater value creation and cost savings to benefit partnerships.

To make strategic supplier partnerships a success and maximize the benefits they offer, operators should prioritize the following actions:

• Understand the true financial health of your supply chain by creating a deep and forward-looking understanding of individual supplier companies.
• Identify two or three suppliers across key categories, where large pools of potential value could be unlocked, and pilot strategic supplier partnerships with eles. Valor. Esta mensagem é particularmente relevante para a indústria de petróleo e gás hoje. A crise elevou a função de compras dentro dos operadores, transformando -a de uma função de apoio em uma fonte de vantagem competitiva e deu aos principais oficiais de compras um assento na tabela executiva. Esses líderes agora precisam equilibrar a saúde da cadeia de suprimentos com uma agenda de criação de valor e transformar parcerias estratégicas em realidade. Alex Dolya
• Ensure that you have senior sponsorship, and then start small by focusing on entry-level partnership components, such as long-term performance-based contracts, to help build trust between operators and suppliers.
• Brace for the inevitable culture shock caused by the difference in DNA between operators and OFSE companies—while remembering that strategic partnerships are a key way to create significant potential value.
• Go further with the partnership over time by introducing more complex partnership features, such as joint design development and operations planning, as well as co-innovation.

With a nod to former US president and army general Dwight D. Eisenhower, one could say that battles, and even wars, have been won or lost primarily because of procurement and supply chains. This message is particularly relevant for the oil and gas industry today. The crisis has elevated the procurement function within operators, transforming it from a support role into a source of competitive advantage, and it has given chief procurement officers a seat at the executive table. These leaders now need to balance supply chain health with a value creation agenda and turn strategic partnerships into reality.