Dr Dominic Emery – Former bp Group Chief of Staff
Cost can be reduced — without ever becoming efficient.
Benchmarking defines what cost should actually be.
Exploring how independent comparative reference points strengthen technical, operational and investment decisions throughout the life of hydrocarbon assets.
Across large-scale oil & gas systems, cost and performance are continuously optimised.
Projects are refined.
Supply chains are improved.
Investment decisions evolve.
But optimisation alone does not define efficiency.
The critical question is not:
“Are we reducing cost?”
It is:
“How does our cost and performance compare to what is achievable?”
Across mega-projects and long-cycle investments, small differences in performance translate into material outcomes over time.
Not driven by a single factor —
but by how systems are configured, how decisions are sequenced, and how execution is managed across the lifecycle.
These differences are not always visible.
They are embedded in how projects are delivered, how supply chains operate, and how investment is sustained through the cycle.
Benchmarking provides the reference.
Not as comparison alone —
but as a discipline that establishes:
- what cost efficiency actually looks like
- how performance varies across comparable systems
- where value is being created — or left unrealised
In that context, benchmarking does not sit alongside performance improvement.
It defines what performance improvement actually means.
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