Oil & Gas Facility Construction Market Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Construction Service Providers and its sub-segments such as Oil & Gas Facility Construction are at an interesting intersection. Suppliers across the value chain are increasing their investments in technologies and incorporating systems integrated with IoT, AI, Big data, and data analytics to generate efficiencies and better serve the evolving demand patterns of buyers. This is expected to impact the cost structure of suppliers in the short-term but will help bring down the costs in longer run as suppliers recover the costs of current investment cycles.

To attract investment and drive long-term value, suppliers are building unique business models and implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and stakeholder engagement programs. Such strategic initiatives are pivotal to acquire a social license to operate, generate consumer awareness, and have easy access to input commodities.

Periods of macroeconomic uncertainty and increasing stringency of immigration laws are key contributors to the workforce shortage in the market. Domestic workers in developed countries often choose to pursue higher education and less cyclical employment opportunities while foreign workers return to their home countries due to tough immigration laws and economic conditions. Consequently, suppliers have had to increase labor wages to attract skilled and unskilled labor, which has increased their costs and forced them to increase their pricing.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Oil & Gas Facility Construction is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

It has become imperative for category managers to remain as agile as possible in terms of their procurement practices. However, it is not always easy to quickly spot and implement alternative practices in a category like Oil & Gas Facility Construction. To help quick decision making, this report advises on several procurement best practices that have worked well for category managers.

For example, Buyers must have a clear understanding of the sub-contracting policies of suppliers. Suppliers must be evaluated on factors such as price, quality, and regulatory compliance of their subcontractors before they are selected.

Buyers should invest in benchmarking studies that help them to improve their knowledge of prevalent pricing structures within the industry. This is based on job role and function that allows them to not only save costs but also negotiate better with service providers.

It is highly recommended that buyers prioritize regional suppliers unless the project specifications are extremely sophisticated and require specialized vendors. A regional supplier base enables buyers to have significant negotiation power due to spend consolidation and exhaustive knowledge of the local codes and environmental regulations. It also insulates them from adverse fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

Oil & Gas Facility Construction procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Oil & Gas Facility Construction procurement. Some examples include: