Oil and Gas
Oil and Gas | Commercial and Risk Analysis
Mitigating Bias, Blindness and Illusions in E&P Decision Making
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Decisions in E and P ventures are affected by cognitive bias, perceptual blindness, and illusions which permeate our analyses, interpretations and decisions. This course examines the influence of these cognitive errors and presents techniques that can be used to mitigate their impact. The course includes awareness exercises, E and P examples, mitigation tools, and (most importantly) mitigation exercises to practice lessening the impact of these errors.
Please note this course is offered in partnership with Rose and Associates. They will deliver and provide all logistics for the course.
Schedule
Duration and Training Method
This is a classroom or virtual classroom featuring lectures, discussions, individual and team exercises, videos, and case studies. If desired, the course can be modified to focus more on exploration or production aspects, geoscience or engineering disciplines, and conventional or unconventional reservoirs.
Course Overview
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn to:
- Recognize the various types of cognitive errors and be able to distinguish them.
- Understand how these errors manifest themselves in our daily activities and assessments.
- Reduce their reliance on intuition, instinct, and “rules-of-thumb” in analysis and decision-making.
- Apply key steps to mitigate bias, blindness, and illusion in their data analysis, interpretations, and look-backs.
- Focus on turning “unknown unknowns” into “known unknowns” so that they’re not surprised by the unexpected.
- Generate lists of assumptions, contrary assumptions, and the impact of the differences between these in order to identify critical project uncertainties.
- Appreciate that deterministic estimates for the same project made by multiple teams will result in a broad range of outcomes, demonstrating that individual teams need to keep their ranges wide.
- Recognize motivational bias (a conscious bias) and how it can trigger their own unconscious biases.
- Appreciate the importance of “following the process” and rewarding this along with the project outcome.
- Identify, in various case studies, which cognitive errors contributed to erroneous interpretations and decisions.
Course Content
Day 1
- Introduction
- Key elements of rigorous project assessment, how we’ve performed as an industry, how cognitive errors distort our judgment and reduce our profitability
- Bias
- Anchoring: Anchoring of an evaluation by attaching it to a reference value
- Availability: Overestimating the likelihood of events that are more recent or memorable
- Confirmation: Searching for and interpreting data in a way that confirms our beliefs
- Framing: Reacting to a particular choice depending upon how it is presented
- Information: Having a distorted assessment of information and its significance
- Overconfidence: Overestimating the accuracy of one’s own interpretation or ability
- Motivational: Taking actions or decisions based on a desire for a particular outcome
Day 2
- Perceptual Blindness
- The failure to see something hiding in plain sight because we’re focused on a task
- Illusions
- Illusion of Potential: The belief that an opportunity is much better or worse than it actually is
- Illusion of Knowledge: Mistaking our sense of familiarity for real understanding
- Illusion of Objectivity: Believing we’re more open-minded, impartial, and less conforming than we really are
- Case Studies (a relevant subset will be chosen from the following)
- Plio-Pleistocene Sandstone (Exploration Well)
- Pliocene Sandstone (Exploration ‘Drill or Drop’)
- Jurassic Sandstone (Exploration License Round)
- Cambro-Ordovician Sandstone (Appraisal)
- Cretaceous Shale (Appraisal)
- Miocene Sandstone (Development)
- Cambrian Sandstone (EOR Implementation)
- Mitigation Toolkit
- Summary of mitigation techniques and steps
- Laminated card summarizing key course learnings for handy future reference
Who Should Attend and Prerequisites
Individuals working in geoscience, engineering, management, finance, administrative, or operational roles will all benefit from this course.
Instructors
Marc Bond
Background
Marc Bond is a Senior Associate with Rose and Associates and has over 35 years of petroleum industry experience. At Rose, Marc is responsible for teaching and consulting on all aspects of prospect evaluation and risk & uncertainty analysis. He also specializes in independent assurance of exploration projects and exploration portfolio & strategy management. Marc is also instrumental in organizing and maintaining a Risk Coordinators Workshop and Network to share and compare best practices within the industry.
Before joining Rose, Marc held a variety of management and interpretation roles with BG Group and Tenneco Oil. His most recent position was Chief Geophysicist at BG and prior to that he was the Subsurface Assurance Manager for 6 years. He has worked on several international projects, with substantial experience in Bolivia sub-Andes where he was the Exploration Manager and lead subsurface interpreter. He also has significant experience in compressional, difficult terrain seismic interpretation. Other experience includes exploration and appraisal in the North Sea, North and West Africa, Italy and the Rocky Mountains.
Affiliations and Accreditation
MSc Colorado School of Mines - Geophysics
BSc University of California at Santa Cruz - Geology
BSc University of California at Santa Cruz - Environmental Science
Colorado State University - Graduate Studies in Business, Finance & Management
Courses Taught
N510: Mitigating Bias, Blindness and Illusions in E&P Decision Making
Creties Jenkins
Background
Creties Jenkins is a Partner with Rose and Associates where he specializes in the characterization of unconventional reservoirs including tight sandstones and carbonates, shales, and coals. Creties has conducted integrated studies, peer reviews, training, and resources assessment work for 50+ companies around the world and has conducted 100+ industry courses and workshops focused on the exploration, appraisal, and development of tight oil and gas reservoirs. Creties’ career has included stints at Tenneco Oil (1986-88), ARCO (1988-2000), and DeGolyer and MacNaughton (2000-2012).
Creties has served as a technical editor, distinguished lecturer, and distinguished author for SPE. He is a past president of the Energy Minerals Division of AAPG and a recipient of AAPG’s 2017 Distinguished Service Award. Creties is also a co-author of SPEE Monograph 4: Estimating Ultimate Recovery of Developed Wells in Low-Permeability Reservoirs (2016) and led a Multi-Professional Society Summit: Building and Applying the Universal Workflow for Low Permeability Oil and Gas Reservoirs (2017).
Affiliations and Accreditation
MSc South Dakota School of Mines - Geology
BSc South Dakota School of Mines - Geological Engineering
Registered Professional Geoscientist (Texas)
Registered Professional Engineer (Texas)
Courses Taught
N313: Evaluating Resource Plays: The Geology and Engineering of Low Permeability Oil and Gas Reservoirs
N406: Unconventional Resource Assessment and ValuationN313: Evaluating Resource Plays: The Geology and Engineering of Low Permeability
N464: Fractured Reservoir Assessment and Integration to Full Field
N510: Mitigating Bias, Blindness and Illusions in E&P Decision Making