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The formation of 'peer groups' within a company can bring together managers from different units for knowledge sharing and mutual learning. Yet such groups tend to deliver modest benefits rather than helping to transform the company's performance. BP, however, set up a system of peer groups and claims to have derived major benefits from them. This article attempts to find out why. Among the lessons learned are the importance of the composition of peer groups, the need for a performance culture with clear deliverables, the value of self-management processes, and the role of top management support. Peer groups are suitable for encouraging collaboration in companies that wish to preserve business unit autonomy and avoid strong corporate functions. But peer groups are less suitable for performance optimisation than for performance improvement, and are less able to bring about some types of collaboration. Therefore different sorts of peer processes may be needed by different companies and at different stages in their development.

The financial imbalance caused by the situation of winter drilling in the oil and gas industry in Canada's northeastern B.C. is examined. Workers, mainly from Alberta, take back home $1.6 billion in wages every spring, while Fort St. John the regions main town, is operating on a $130 million deficit in infrastructure.

In previous posts I may have mentioned that a long time ago, when I still had both hair and a waistline, I had a corporate position for a little over [...]

Violence in a fading oil town shatters the country's reputation for stability THE perception had grown in Kazakhstan that the country's long-serving autocrat, 71-year-old President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was like an [...]

Manpower is becoming a critical factor in a future upturn in the petroleum industry. By Philip C Crouse, president of Philip C Crouse and Associates THE petroleum industry was shell [...]

WAGE inflation will accelerate in the next few years as a wave of new offshore rigs come into service, according to Andrew Gould, chief executive of Schlumberger. Interview by Tom [...]

The row over the future of BP's Russian joint venture deepens JUST who is in charge of TNK-BP, a Russian oil firm in which BP, a British oil giant, and [...]

As the oil industry's workforce expands to meet rising energy demand, a successful training programme has become a vital ingredient of success, writes Tom Nicholls ONE OF Petrofac's main motives [...]

After shocking energy markets with the admission that its proven oil and gas reserves were a fifth lower than previously reported, and then ousting its chairman, Royal Dutch/Shell is under [...]

After shocking energy markets with the admission that its proven oil reserves were a fifth lower than previously reported, and then ousting its chairman, Royal Dutch/Shell is under fire again. [...]

Crude processing will be restored to pre-NATO strikes level by 31 December, Zinvko Soklavacki, chairman of Nafta Industrija Srbije told the Tan-jug news agency in [...]

Crown Central Petroleum Corp. has negotiated a new three-year collective bargaining agreement with the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union (PACE) for its Tyler, Texas, refinery. The agreement covers [...]

* Petrobras last month went to Congress to request an increase in its $1.9bn investment budget for 1999/2000. The extra money will be used to fund offshore exploration activity. * [...]

A list of top 10 jobs in the petroleum industry in Canada along with pay and nature of jobs, is presented.

RECENT US GRADUATE geologists are securing the industry's best pay rises because they are in short supply, claims a survey by a US recruitment company. The annual Explorer survey, conducted [...]

Serious concern over the shortage of skilled workers affects the US petroleum industry. The shortage is blamed on downsizing demanded by investors, that gripped the industry in the 1980s. Large oil companies have laid off an estimated 200,000 workers since 1986. Unfortunately, oil companies failed to realize its impact on the quality and creativity of their manpower resource. Based on the industry's experience, downsizing should not be accepted as a strategy in improving corporate performance., Oil companies set the pace in shedding workers. But now that companies are facing a shortage of skilled staff, they are realising the value of a happy, properly-staffed workforce, Art [...]

Downsizing efforts in the petroleum industry may become a source of workforce problems in the 21st century. From 1986 to 1995, the industry has laid off about 450,000 workers, reducing total workforce to only 600,000 from a high of 1.4 million in 1981. If the trend continues, the industry would be left with only 50,000 by 2005. Downsizing has been a result of economic pressure from investors who were obsessed with higher profits. Some industry leaders, however, have already recognized the danger of unreasonable downsizing, such as those in Houston and Dallas, TX., Oil companies set the pace in shedding workers. But now that companies are facing a shortage of skilled staff, they are realising the value of a happy, properly-staffed workforce, Art [...]

Major oil companies believe that geoscience training programs are an integral part of the viability of a company. Present training programs are multi- disciplinary oriented, unlike in the past which stressed specialist technical skills. These courses also involve on-the-job training, courses from outside organizations and career-long training. Although the financial policies of most companies have been adversely affected by the recession, budgets for training programs are still maintained., Even in times of recession, Nina Morgan finds that major oil companies believe money spent on training is money well spent FEW oil companies would dispute that in order to [...]

One study found that oil and gas workers and their families used their employee assistance programs (EAP) for help in substance abuse 35 percent more than in other industries. Some see the findings positively and one interprets it as a sign that the programs make them socially acceptable in the workplace but the flip side is that the industry can be more conducive to substance abuse.

A shortlist of candidates has been drawn up to replace Kuwait Petroleum Corporation's chief executive officer, Hani Hussain, who resigned in April, several months before his contract was due to [...]

* UK firm Regal saw its shares collapse and senior management resigned after it announced that its Kallirachi-2 well, in the Aegean Sea, was 'non-commercial'. Regal owns 95.55% of local [...]

ENERGY companies must make themselves appealing to a wider potential workforce and put human-resource (HR) management at the centre of their thinking, says Booz Allen Hamilton. Otherwise. given the low [...]

FIRST TO GO from state-owned PdV's top ranks was company president All Rodriguez. Next, President Hugo Chavez's government dismissed the majority of the board of directors, including the company's three [...]

Onshore producers were operating in a state of siege last month, following threats by a Niger delta militant group against expatriate staff. The government held talks with the group, the [...]

Harry Longwell, 63, executive vice president and director of ExxonMobil Corp., is to retire at the end of the year after 41 years service. Stuart McGill, 62, currently president, ExxonMobil [...]

Storting (parliament) has ruled that the state will pay compensation to divers injured up to 1990 in work on the Norwegian shelf. Those injured after 1990 are supposed to be [...]

PdV has rehired 900 workers it sacked as a result of their involvement in the civil disturbances during December and January. Some 18,000 workers were fired during and after the [...]

Russia's Tatneft increased its team of drilling experts in the country last month. It has a one-year contract, approved by the UN, to drill 45 wells in the Saddam and [...]

NNPC is to cut 2,000 jobs - 20% of its employees - in readiness for privatisation. Plans start with the sale of its four refineries this year, the authorities aiming [...]

The state-owned oil company, Pemex, will cut 2,000 jobs this year from its 137,000-strong workforce, it said last [...]

Cost-saving restructuring at BP's Grangemouth refining and petrochemicals complex will lead to the closure of the smallest crude distillation unit and of a polyethylene plant. Up to 1,000 of the [...]

Changes at Chevron affect Atlanta offices Chevron U.S.A. Inc. President Will Price announced the consolidation of two regional marketing divisions, one based in Atlanta, and the reorganization of its asphalt [...]

When the axe fell last month on head office staff at British Petroleum, the world's third largest oil company, it did not so much signal a major cost-cutting exercise as [...]

Staff Cutbacks at Oxy and Mobil Large personnel cutbacks by two large US oil companies may represent the beginning of a further industry-wide rationalisation in response to the continuing steep [...]