A robust risk management framework is crucial in the oil and gas industry, especially given the volatile global oil markets and potential geopolitical impacts, according to Heritage Petroleum’s Eric Kuskula.
Kuskula – CEO of Trinidad and Tobago’s newest state-owned oil and gas company – recently appeared on the Energy Perspectives podcast.
Speaking on his company’s approach, Kuskula explained, “From a perspective of Guyana and Trinidad, they’re very different places, given the mature assets that we have and how new the industry is, especially deep water offshore. But the industry really has similar risks regardless of those ages.”
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He stressed that risk management must be embedded throughout the organization. “It drives a culture throughout…not just at the executive and boardroom level, where we talk about enterprise risk a lot, but also all the way down to the field level,” he added.
At the field level, Kuskula pointed out, employees can better find and mitigate risks. However, he acknowledged that it is impossible to eliminate all risks. “What’s important is we’ve identified them, we transparently discuss those, and we mitigate those to the lowest level as possible so that in the event something happens, it’s not a catastrophic consequence.”
Shifting to lessons for oil economies like Guyana, Kuskula shared his perspective on Trinidad and Tobago’s experience. “Every company and every country struggles with predicting oil prices,” he said. “While we might get it right sometimes, we oftentimes don’t.”
He stressed that managing costs effectively is crucial, particularly in rapidly growing sectors like Guyana’s. Aiding this is also strong relationships with contractors and suppliers to ensure competitive pricing.
In addition to cost management, Kuskula emphasized sustainability. “If we can produce our product in a way that has the least amount of emissions, the least amount of waste, then that makes it better for everybody.”
