Kym Bolado Host – Mike, I understand that you are a proponent for using advanced technology to improve asset health and the uptime. So what does that entail and does the industry face a problem today with the maintenance and uptime?

Mike Brooks (Global Director of Aspen Tech) – Technology is changing rapidly, but in spite of the technology changes, all those companies in the old patch, the number one responsibility they have for productivity and efficiencies to manage what’s often called operational excellence. And that comprises a number of things, a number of things. The first three things are about managing the license to operate. That means we want to look after safety so we don’t hurt people inside and outside of the company, right? We want to look after uh, the environment so we don’t dirty the place we want to live in.

Kym Bolado Host – I would imagine it’s probably all over though. Wherever they’re drilling, finding access to capital is getting harder for sure. We see it on wall street, it’s happening. How can better uptime predictions can help them get access to a loss of capital?

Ron Beck (Marketing Strategy Director) – The better, you can manage operational excellence. The better, you’re going to fail to manage the cash that’s coming to you. And the better projections you’d give forth to those who’d like to give you cash to improve your company. The better you do, the early you can predict these types of events, then you can take care of them with a lot less operating capital to do that. And that is going to reflect on the ability of capital in the market to go to the places where you’d like to invest it.

Mike Brooks (Global Director of Aspen Tech) – So one other interesting point on that that uh, we recently set up, uh, a working relationship with one of the major insurance companies insuring the oil industry [inaudible] and they, you know, are really as an insurer, they’re really excited about this ability to predict downtime and things like that. So they’ve actually offered companies that are investing in this prescriptive maintenance area, uh, specifically our technology, the opportunity to get discounts on their insurance cause they feel it’ll be a more efficient use of capital companies and so forth.

Thank you to both of our guests from Aspen Tech and to our listeners!

Shale Oil & Gas Business Magazine