As a simulation exercise, SAS has created a fictitious oil portfolio, VirtualOil, which readers can use as a generic benchmark against their physical oil commodity book’s performance. Each month, we reflect on what the visual analytics can tell us about the portfolio’s movement, with additional commentary and granular chart views
Whether it’s to reduce churn in competitive markets or to elevate customer satisfaction rankings in regulated markets, customer analytics is hot right now in utilities. However, the complexity that utilities have built into their processes and technologies over the past decades makes customer analytics a more challenging issue to tackle
The energy & utilities industry as a whole has experienced a seismic shift over the past five years due to rising costs and price pressures, and has become a priority discussion on the political and media agenda. Falling demand overall combined with “peakier” peaks is making supply, forecasting and public
I’ve been told I have rocks for brains before, but right now I have rocks on the brain – the kind that are millions of years old and contain precious stores of oil and gas. One reason I have petroleum on my mind is that I’ve just returned from Brazil, where
Ask a utility executive about “the utility of the future” and you’re likely to get as many different answers as people you speak to. Whether they’re energy service providers, customer energy advocates or masters of microgrids, the mechanism for maintaining utility revenues is uncertain. At a recent meeting of the
In the energy industry, oil and gas companies as well as utilities are struggling with many changes at once. First, they're facing what the oil and gas industry has coined "the big crew change," meaning the retirement of those with the most skills and experience on how to run their
“Technological innovation is no longer a choice: it is an imperative.” So said Scott O’Malia, Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, about trade surveillance during his keynote address at the recent SAS-sponsored New Risk in Energy 2014 conference in Houston. He was attempting, as he has before, to spur
Oil companies are being forced to explore in geologically complex and remote areas to exploit more unconventional hydrocarbon deposits. New engineering technology has pushed the envelope of previous upstream experience. No guidebook existed on how computing methodologies can contribute to E&P performance at reduced risk. Until now. A new book
In the game of energy forecasting, you’re never 100 percent right. And for developing countries, forecasters face rapidly expanding economies and high political expectations. Such is the case in India. With its relatively young population (median age of 26), India is expected to take over China as the world’s most
I was asked to speak recently on a topic that includes two hyped terms: Big data and sustainability. At the risk of igniting an anti-buzzword campaign, I added a third over-used term to that list: analytics. Even though individuals and companies use those three words – big data, sustainability, and
