After struggling for the past few years with the question "How can we get t
he highest return for our drilling expenditures?," major operators have arr
ived at very different answers. Some have responded by moving the drilling
function to business units, some by retaining a mixture of centralized and
decentralized drilling staffs, and some by outsourcing the function almost
entirely.
The purpose of this paper is to describe why one major operator has chosen
to keep drilling management as one of its core competencies, and how it con
tinues to use a centralized drilling group to meet its exploration and prod
uction customers' needs. Also discussed is the deliberate strategy employed
by this operator to meet the challenges posed by the changing exploration
and development environment. This strategy included elements to manage peop
le, business and technical processes, and to ensure that the drilling organ
ization captured and shared its experience. This paper describes this strat
egy, the organization's successes and remaining challenges, and how this or
ganization plans to address these challenges.