P2 Energy Solutions: One Company, Many Solutions
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Written by Eric Slack   
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
P2 Energy Solutions: One Company, Many Solutions
After a series of acquisitions and mergers built this oil and gas industry technology company, it’s poised for growth because it managed to stay relevant and adapt to customer needs.
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Some technology companies talk about having a wide depth of services and solutions, but those claims may fall short upon further investigation. When P2 Energy Solutions makes that statement, the company has the facts to back it up.

“Our portfolio of capabilities drives client value. We’re not just a one-solution company,” said Bret Bolin, president and CEO. “We are a solid market leader from the context of the numbers of customers we have in the US, Canada, and internationally, as well as the deep bench we have with our employees and subject matter experts in the space.”

P2 Energy Solutions: One Company, Many Solutions
Bret Bolin, president and CEO
Tough to match
P2 Energy Solutions came into being after the 2003 merger of Paradigm Technologies, Petroleum Financial Inc., and Novistar, all oil and gas technology providers. In 2004 and 2005, P2 added Tobin International and Qbyte, respectively. In 2008, Wellcore became the latest addition to the P2 portfolio.

“The company is really the result of a series of product acquisitions over the last decade,” Bolin said. “Those core acquisitions provided us with the opportunity to look at the acquisitions from a one company lens to bring these capabilities together through process integration or technical platform alignment so we could offer a broader set of solutions.”

Today, P2 has offices in Houston, San Antonio, and Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colo.; Calgary, Alberta; and Dubai. Its more than 600 clients include US integrated customers like Chevron and ExxonMobil, international customers like BP and Shell, independents such as Anadarko and Energen Resources, and Canadian independents like EnCana and PrimeWest Energy Trust.

The company offers a widespread array of products and services that help companies manage the many of the back office and operational processes associated with the life cycle of a well. P2’s products include the P2 Energy Solutions software packages, Enterprise Upstream, Excalibur, Qbyte, Reserves Management, Tobin Enterprise Land solutions, Tobin GIS Studio, Tobin’s Map Data product, and Wellcore.

P2 Energy Solutions provides exploration, development, and management solutions. Excalibur, Enterprise Upstream, and Tobin Enterprise Land provide deep operational accounting, financial, and land management capabilities. Qbyte is a back  office, financial, and asset management software system that is suited for E&P companies in Canada.

In addition, P2’s Reserves Management system fuses reserves volumes, classification, status, and changes to volumes into one storage area; the Tobin Enterprise Land solution manages land assets; Tobin GIS Studio (TGS) is a geographic asset management solution; Tobin’s Map Data products are the leading map data solutions in the world servicing the oil and gas industry for over 80 years; and Wellcore, the newest addition to the fold, is a well lifecycle management platform.

With its deep consulting capabilities, P2 provides application implementation, E&P process improvement, custom map services, ERP systems integration, hosting, and photography and mapping. The company can implement solutions for its clients across various technology platforms, develop custom maps and mapping solutions based on client specifications, integrate client departments on common platforms, and provide scalable application and data hosting services.

What all of this allows P2 to do is serve any and all types of clients, from major players in the field to the emerging companies just getting their feet wet. Solutions can be tailored to meet just about any need, and this also allows the company to grow along with its customers.

“Our solutions fit the super majors and large independents, as well as the emerging companies that may have just received private equity funding,” said Bolin. “We are unique in the space because our solutions can scale and be adopted, and create value from all ends of the oil and gas industry in North America and globally.”

For customers with multiple products or inherent complexity in their operations, P2 gets to work ensuring the clients are maximizing the value from each solution. That is called the P2 top tier program for the top 30 to 50 customers that are committed to multiple products. It includes additional deployed resources to be sure clients are getting the right value from the products. In addition, P2’s consulting and support organization work with the top tier clients, as well as the rest of P2’s customers, providing support from application, outsourcing, hosting, and consulting perspectives.

Keep on moving
As P2 Energy Solutions continues to evolve, investing in improving its offerings is one of the most important aspects of the company’s growth strategy. P2 spends millions on R&D each year and regularly announces new product releases, all in an effort to be a more attractive partner to players of all sizes in the oil and gas industry.

2009 was a particularly busy year in that regard. First, the company released Tobin Enterprise Land 3.0 in February. In April, the company entered into an agreement with American Spatial Solutions to begin distributing the First American ParcelPoint database, which has information on more than 113 million US land parcels. In May, it launched Tobin All Access, which provides customers with the option of subscribing to the P2 Energy Solutions SuperBase data inventory for a set price over the course of two years.

Then in September 2009, the company launched Tobin Enterprise Land Version 3.1. Last October, it also announced the first software as a service offering for mid-size oil and gas companies with its release of Excalibur Online, software, map data and enterprise services. Excalibur Online is the subscription-based, hosted version of its Excalibur accounting, revenue, land, and production accounting solution.

By taking a portfolio view of the product sets and not looking at each product as a stand-alone entity, it provides more flexibility as the company moves forward. Common processes and practices from product management and developmental points of view ensure similar quality and standards across all the different product lines.

“We take a market focused approach to learning the business issues and trends in our space, and we talk to industry insiders so we have the broadest based perspective on where our products are now and where they need to be headed,” Bolin said.

Cost management
One of the concerns facing its clients is cost management, so Bolin said P2 is working to make sure its solutions can help address that need from investment and cost efficiency perspectives, as well as providing flexible ways to price its offerings to accommodate client circumstances. Much of P2's current market momentum comes from customers seeing this value in the products and rolling them out enterprise-wide.

In addition, P2 itself is looking for additional markets, as are many of its current clients. Just as renewables are becoming a bigger part of the North American energy scene, the renewables space is likely to play a big role in the future of P2 Energy Solutions.

“We’ve been able to reposition some of our products to align with the business needs of alternative energy providers, specifically in wind and geothermal,” said Bolin. “We’ve gotten some market wins recently and some existing client extensions of our product inside their alternative energy groups, so we’re excited about that going forward.”
 
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