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Oil & Gas Journal

Bob Tippee
Editor

With the perspective of a geophysicist who has worked as both an operator and service provider, Steven Tobias sees a troubling "disconnect" in the upstream oil and gas business.

"At the same time that you have high-technology service companies scrambling for work, there are large companies wondering why they can't generate prospects or develop fields properly," says Tobias, a cofounder and vice-president, exploration, of South Bay Resources LLC, Houston.

The problem isn't the absence of technical tools; rather, it's the absence of time and sometimes inclination of professionals at oil and gas companies to learn about them.

"There are very few stupid or bad people left in the business," Tobias says. "But when the exploration manager gives you a task to do and you have to work these many blocks for the sale or these fields, you don't have time to learn all these new technologies."

Tobias and his two partners in the private operating company they founded just over a year ago are, as he describes it, applying big-company technology to small-company prospects. The firm has discovered commercial hydrocarbons in two out of the three wells it has so far drilled to previously overlooked targets in a mature area of Matagorda County, Tex.

Tobias's experience with highly technical exploration goes far beyond the Texas Gulf Coast, and his professional interests extend into the organizational dynamics of oil and gas companies.

While international exploration manager with Pogo Producing Co., Houston, he generated the prospect that led to the 1995 discovery of Benchamas oil field in a then-dormant area of the Gulf of Thailand. And for 7 years before the start-up of South Bay Resources, he ran a high-tech consultancy called Energy Outpost Co., which he describes as "an asset team for hire."

He thinks everyone at oil companies should experience life as a service provider.

"When you do service work, you gain an appreciation for things like marketing," he says. "No matter how good you are, you need the business context to apply your talents or it's all for naught."

At Energy Outpost, where he handled projects in the US, Southeast Asia, and Europe for more than 20 clients, Tobias learned how different companies can be.

"The variability of quality from company to company is truly shocking," he says. "Some companies are just in reaction mode to the last management issue. Others have corporate cultures that encourage excellence. Being an outsider and coming in and seeing companies, I got a real appreciation for the role of corporate culture."

Because exploration is inherently creative, Tobias says, culture must foster creativity.

"When people are afraid, they're not creative. When they're not creative, they're not learning new technology. They're not generating prospects. So corporate culture is very important."

'Back-breaking' work
At South Bay Resources, Tobias, another geoscientist, and an engineer combine computationally intense integration with what he describes as "back-breaking" work. The approach borrows from Tobias's experience as a consultant, emphasizing a rigorous process applicable to a variety of prospects.