The State of Energy Organizations 2024

The State
of Energy
Organizations
2024
Contents
Energy organizations in transition 3
Operating model 8
New energy businesses: The independence versus integration dilemma 8
Five features of operational excellence in oil and gas organizations 18
The productivity prize in oil and gas: Lessons from top performers 22
Talent 27
Talent squeeze: Planning for the energy sector’s talent transition 27
Employee retention trends and challenges in the oil and gas industry 36
Leadership 43
Powering up new leadership for a changing energy environment 43
Transforming an oil and gas equipment leader: A case study 54
M&A 59
Success in the M&A rebound: Riding the coming wave of upstream deals 59
Beyond G&A: Maximizing synergy from oil and gas mergers 65
The importance of cultural integration in M&A: The path to success 73
The State of Energy Organizations 2024 2

Energy organizations in
transition
Organizations in the energy sector are evolving in response to the
energy quadrilemma. With critical choices and challenges on the
horizon, making proactive moves now could determine future success.
This article is a collaborative effort by Robert Belanger, Ignacio Fantaguzzi, Christopher
Handscomb, Jesper Ludolph, and Phil Quadri, representing views from McKinsey’s Global Energy &
Materials and People & Organizational Performance Practices.

The coming decade will be a defining moment for the maximize value creation in the traditional business,
global energy system. Institutional and public interest grow cash flows, and take advantage of the high
is at an all-time high, driven by the ever-increasing returns. However, as this momentum grows, an
need for affordable, reliable, secure, and competitive old question has resurfaced: business unit- or
energy. Companies must navigate the task of function-first for the traditional core business?
maintaining a strong, high-return “traditional” core,
while building businesses in the fast-moving, high- What primary axis should be
growth space of renewables, low-carbon solutions, used for the traditional core?
power, and retail. This challenge demands bold
action and innovative solutions, as we work toward a The choice between business unit (BU)—whether
sustainable energy future that benefits our planet and asset, regional, or value chain—or function-centric as
our economies. the primary organizational axis has been a hot topic
for several decades, with many companies switching
For the world, solving this energy quadrilemma
between these models over time.
will require significant investment, technological
advancements, and a favorable operating The choice of model essentially reflects a fundamental
environment. However, at the heart of this journey are belief about how a company creates distinctive value:
energy organizations and their leaders. Being fast, on the one hand, a functional model enables you to
agile, and efficient will be essential as competition optimize across portfolios, and drive global scale,
for talent intensifies, integration of mergers and standardization, and functional excellence. On the
acquisitions becomes crucial for value creation, and other, anchoring ownership in the BU incentivizes local
generative AI (gen AI) changes the workplace as we optimization, aiming to capture value in each and every
know it. facility, with the potential to move more quickly and
unlock significant growth.
In this report, we build on our flagship cross-industry
State of Organizations research and take a closer look Over the past year, we have seen an increasing
at the State of Energy Organizations.¹ We identify and number of companies begin to revisit this choice
explore four key themes for energy companies in the and we expect this to be a growing theme through
coming year: operating models, leadership, talent, and 2024. To contribute to this debate, we reviewed
mergers and acquisitions, with reflective questions over 20 years of McKinsey proprietary performance
for organizations to consider as they navigate through datasets to draw insights linking asset performance
2024 and beyond. with operating model choices. We found, on average,
that BU or asset-centric models have the edge in
Choices to define the next decade terms of operational performance, but that they can
compromise on consistency and produce a wider
Over the past 18 months we have seen several range of outcomes on both operating cost and
energy companies announce strategic adjustments production efficiency.
that reemphasize the importance of their traditional
core businesses. This reflects the growing Irrespective of the choice made, companies can also
importance of energy reliability and security, as go back to basics by focusing on some fundamental
well as slower than expected cash flows from step changes across their operating model: radical
new energy businesses. Against this backdrop, simplification, value-backed technology deployment,
companies are recognizing that now is the time to
1 The state of organizations 2023: Ten shifts transforming organizations, McKinsey, April 26, 2023.

delivery through agile teaming, and other efforts to blockbuster successes; the remainder were partial
close the productivity gap. successes at best.²
Additionally, we are observing a trend of companies Overcoming these odds will not be easy and
going even deeper into their operating model— the fundamental question is how to harness the
reimagining both technical and nontechnical support advantages of being an incumbent while providing the
models. Naturally, gen AI and digital will play a leading freedom to deliver with the agility of a start-up.
role, however, many companies are rethinking their
The answer is not the same for all; however, purposeful
geographic footprint, tapping into large engineering
decisions are needed sooner rather than later to
talent markets, and revisiting their operating models
deliver on the growth promised to investors.
for technology development and deployment to ride
the next technology S-curve. Key questions to consider
Key questions to consider • At the strategic level (including capital allocation)

how autonomous should your new energy
• Do you have the right tension between a BU-
business be?
and function-centric organization to deliver
your ambitions? • What are the right key success factors that will
enable your new energy business to grow?
• What are the big unlocks in 2024 that would
drive performance? • What are the right architecture, corporate
functions, technical support, midstream gas or
• How could changes to your geographic
trading decisions that will set your new energy
footprint or technology operating model enable
business up for success?
stronger performance?
What are the talent and leadership
Should new energy businesses
needs for a new era?
be integrated in or independent
from the core?
The focus over recent years has been to secure
specialist engineering, digital, and commercial talent
Most energy players have ambitions to grow new
to develop new businesses and capabilities. This
energy businesses alongside enjoying continued
challenge remains alive, and competition for talent
success in their existing core. These twin objectives
continues to be fierce.
require winning simultaneously in very different
markets, with different drivers of success and, However, a new challenge of equal proportion is
therefore, different operating model needs. As a result, bubbling under the surface: the need to retain and
we see energy companies around the world grappling refresh the skill base to sustain the existing core
with profound questions over how to set up their business. This challenge will grow in prominence
organization to win in both worlds. against a backdrop of significant retirements, with
400,000 oil and gas employees in the United States
First, the bad news. The data shows that most
approaching retirement, and the increasingly negative
corporate new business builds are not a great success.
perception of the traditional energy sector among
Just 16 percent of all new business builds in Fortune
younger workers in some parts of the world.³
100 companies since 2000 have turned out to be
2 Matt Banholzer, Markus Berger-de León, Subu Narayanan, and Mark Patel, “How industrial incumbents can create new businesses,” McKinsey,
November 13, 2019.
3 “Labor force statistics from the current population survey,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022.

The good news for employers in the new energy space rewards the desired behaviors rather than hindering
is that knowledge, expertise, and competencies or—worst of all—punishing them.
gained in more traditional energy businesses
Key questions to consider
are relatively easily transferred. However, this
transferability further compounds the challenges in • Do you have sufficient strategic talent plans for the
retaining and attracting talent to the historic core. next five years, and do they take advantage of the
global talent market?
To enhance their attractiveness to the talent market,
many firms are reevaluating their employee value • Does your EVP fit the modern expectations
proposition (EVP), focusing on creating broader, or of employees?
faster career opportunities, reshaping the corporate
• Do you and your leaders understand the
culture, and changing the perceptions of senior
transformation ahead and are you ready for it?
leaders. At the same time, many firms are broadening
their accessible talent market, taking advantage How do you create value from
of the global talent pool to strengthen their bench. M&A in an era of consolidation?
Whichever way this challenge is addressed, it seems
that early and purposeful moves in 2024 may position Operators are already taking advantage of the high
firms ahead of their peers for the next decade. cash flows generated in the latest market cycle,
with many pulling the traditional levers of capital
Beyond the talent squeeze, leaders hold a unique
management, shoring up their balance sheets, and
position in the journey ahead. The leaders of today are
returning cash to shareholders.
shaped by their traditional business and corporate
histories; however, what lies ahead will be different However, we are already seeing the next wave of M&A
in terms of challenges and opportunities—and activity globally, with a high likelihood of acceleration
only accelerated through the emergence of new in 2024.4 Oil and gas is moving with this trend, with
technologies like gen AI. These will place different recent megadeals such as ExxonMobil–Pioneer
demands on leaders and require an evolved Natrural Resources, Chevron–Hess, and
leadership model. Occidental Petroluem–CrownRock LP, with new
energies following closely behind with a more
Our survey of over 140 senior leaders indicates the
programmatic approach.5
change needed as leaders move from a “traditional
leadership” style prioritizing elements such as Executing the deal is one thing, and for many,
planning, directing, and controlling to an “emerging acquisitions are seen internally as “bread and
leadership” approach that values a visionary style butter,” however, more than 50 percent of deals in
where leaders act as an architect, catalyst, and coach. the exploration and production sector don’t create
Achieving this goes far beyond defining desired value for shareholders.6 As we begin the next wave of
leadership behaviors and running development M&As, it is clear that it must be different—the creation
programs, but into the DNA of corporations—requiring of value will underpin success, with organizational
a culture and operating system that reinforces and unlocks at the center.
4 Robert Belanger, Jeremy Brown, and Tom Grace, “Success in the M&A rebound: Riding the coming wave of upstream deals,” McKinsey, February
24, 2023.
5 “ExxonMobil announces merger with Pioneer Natural Resources in an all-stock transaction,” ExxonMobil, October 11, 2023; “Chevron announces
agreement to acquire Hess,” Chevron, October 23, 2023; “Occidental to acquire CrownRock, strengthening its U.S. onshore portfolio with premier
Permian Basin assets,” Oxy, December 11, 2023.
6 McKinsey analysis.

There are three characteristics we observe to can help optimize production, reservoir modeling, and
create value in both the short- and long-term. First, allow for higher quality decision making. It can analyze
integration—capturing value far beyond general and sensor data and historical maintenance records to
administrative expense synergies is critical. The best predict equipment failures and recommend proactive
use the moment of transaction to catalyze a step maintenance actions to improve operational efficiency,
change in performance across all levers and create reduce downtime, and improve safety.
an inherent “deal and integration machine” to deliver
The technological side of the equation is complex
value creating integrations over and over again.
but may not be the biggest challenge. There will be a
Second, enabling long-term growth by selecting the
huge impact on people: the capabilities and skills they
right end-state operating model, striking the right
need and how their day-to-day jobs might change.
balance between dependent and independent.
The introduction of gen AI could lead to the evolution
Third, focusing on managing culture from the very
of existing job roles and the emergence of new
start of the M&A process is important to delivering
ones. It opens up amazing opportunities as well as
long-term success.
challenges. To make the most of both, it will be critical
Key questions to consider to stay ahead of the trend and plan for how this may
impact your people model and require investments in
• Do you have the inherent capability to build the
reskilling and upskilling parts of the workforce.
“deal and integration machine” required?
Key questions to consider
• How can new opportunities be catalyzed at the
point of integration to realize step changes • What proportion of jobs will be significantly
in performance? exposed to automation due to gen AI in the
next decade?
• How will you make the right decision when
selecting the end-state operating model? • What impact does gen AI have on the capabilities
needed in your workforce in the coming decade?
What role can gen AI perform
for energy organizations? • Do you have a plan in place to close the capability
gap and capture the gen AI revolution?
Gen AI has the potential to revolutionize the energy
―
industry by enabling more efficient operations,
better decision making, and improved resource Faced with change—and opportunity—on several
management. Potential applications include data fronts, energy organizations have critical choices to
analysis and interpretation, predictive maintenance, make to shape their future in a low-carbon world.
and virtual monitoring and simulation—among many Thinking strategically now about operating models,
more yet to be imagined. leadership, talent, and M&A could position energy
organizations to evolve ahead of these major trends.
Gen AI can analyze large volumes of data from sources
Those who don’t plan now risk being left behind.
such as seismic surveys, well logs, and production logs
to identify patterns, anomalies, and correlations that
Robert Belanger is an associate partner at McKinsey’s Houston office, where Ignacio Fantaguzzi is a partner; Christopher
Handscomb is a partner in the London office, where Phil Quadri is an associate partner; Jesper Ludolph is a partner in the
Bengaluru office.

Operating model
New energy businesses:

The independence
versus integration
dilemma
Energy majors set ambitious targets for new energy businesses
(renewables, CCUS, hydrogen). They need an operating model
combining the strengths of an incumbent with the agility needed
to succeed.
This article is a collaborative effort by Esmee Bergman, Ignacio Fantaguzzi, Christopher Handscomb,
Jesper Ludolph, and Phil Quadri representing views from McKinsey’s Global Energy & Materials and
People & Organizational Performance Practices.

There is enormous value at stake in the energy percent by 2050 (Exhibit 1). It’s hardly surprising that
transition as the world continues to move toward energy incumbents are entering this new energy
cleaner energy. Electrification and renewables, in space. The potential 2030 market opportunity in
particular, show accelerated growth, with electric new energy businesses is estimated at $3 trillion,
power and hydrogen expected to represent 32 with top energy majors expected to make an average
percent of the global energy mix by 2035 and 50 investment of $35 billion between 2022 and 2030.7
Exhibit 1
The share of electricity in energy composition will continue to grow.

The share of electricity in energy composition will continue to grow.
Final energy consumption by fuel, Achieved Commitments scenario, million TJ

500
CAGR 2019–50, %
Other¹ 1
–6% Electricity 3
400 Hydrogen 8
Bioenergy² –1
Natural gas –3
300 Oil –3
Coal –4
200
100
0
1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
1
Includes heat, geothermal, and solar thermal.
2
Includes synthetic fuels, biofuels, and other biomass.
Source: Global Energy Perspective 2023, McKinsey, October 18, 2023
McKinsey & Company

As many energy majors embark on their own new executives in Fortune 100 companies report that
energy business ventures, an important question on their corporate business builds have achieved
their minds is whether they can strike the right balance blockbuster success after four years.8 The
between dependence and independence, harnessing remainder were partially successful at best.
the advantages of being an incumbent while enabling
the agility of a start-up. Disruption was once considered the domain of start-
ups. Today, however, incumbents are actively using
With new energy businesses in their early days, this strategy themselves to disrupt the industry.
there are no definitive answers to this question of Incumbents are rightly asking how to strike the right
independence or integration; different types of new balance between dependence and independence
businesses are seeing initial success with different when it comes to their new energy business.
operating models. However, there are key choices
and considerations that can help incumbents avoid The pressure to make the right choice is enormous,
the most common pitfalls of business building. This given its impact on operational performance.
article explores the different operating models
chosen for new energy ventures by companies with an Clear prioritization and end-to-end accountability
established incumbent business (for example, oil and for business units and teams can drive an uplift of
gas and utilities). more than 30 percent in operational performance.
Ensuring purpose and the ability to operate
Why the right choice matters autonomously to get things done can increase
employee engagement by 30 percentage points. And
Leaders can underestimate the difficulty of starting
creating teams of doers and removing red tape can
a new venture within the boundaries of existing
turn plans into action five to ten times faster than if
processes, systems, culture, and behaviors. New
the incorrect operating model has been chosen.9
businesses often fail to scale. Only 16 percent of
As many energy majors embark on their own new

energy business ventures, an important question
on their minds is whether they can strike the right
balance between dependence and independence,
harnessing the advantages of being an incumbent
while enabling the agility of a start-up.
8 Matt Banholzer, Markus Berger-de León, Subu Narayanan, and Mark Patel, “How industrial incumbents can create new businesses,” McKinsey,
November 13, 2019.
9 Wouter Aghina, Christpher Handscomb, Olli Salo, and Shail Thaker, “The impact of agility: How to shape your organization to compete,” McKinsey,
May 25, 2021.

Weighing the options the parent company but often attracts additional
external funding and partners (see sidebar “Case
Corporate structures for new energy businesses range study: Eni creates an independent renewables
from full business separation to full integration within business—Plenitude” for an example of this approach).
the core business, each with its own benefits and risks.
An alternative approach is to form a partnership with
an existing renewables venture. The incumbent often
Full separation
provides the brand, access to customers, capital, and
seconds specific key capabilities into the venture while
In a separation model, the new business can be set
the renewables venture provides the lean governance,
up as a separate entity (such as a subsidiary). As a
processes, and culture required to grow at pace (see
subsidiary, the new business has its own legal and
sidebar “BP partnered up with a renewables venture”
financial structure, leadership team, processes, and
for the story of how BP formed a joint venture to
people model. In many cases, it is largely funded by
accelerate their solar business).
Case study: Eni creates an independent renewables business—Plenitude
In 2023, Eni, a leading energy company, sufficient company was created with an Creating the fully independent organization,
decided to fully carve out their renewables entirely independent operating model from Plenitude, allowed them to integrate the
business in order to diversify their portfolio the parent company, with some exceptions renewables value chain (from generation to
and accelerate their growth. As part of on risk management, compliance, and consumers), better position this part of the
this process, they combined their existing selected audit processes. The board of the business to attract green financing,
renewables generation business with their new venture was made up of independent and achieve a higher valuation for the
retail, energy management, finance, and board members as well as several members combined entities.
environmental, social, and governance selected from the parent company.
operations.¹ In doing so, a financially self-
1 Eni retail and renewables capital markets day, Eni, November 22, 2021.

BP partnered up with a renewables venture
An example of a partnership approach five markets and 1.5 gigawatts (GW) to 19 offers autonomy and decision making free
is LightsourceBP. In 2017, BP initiated a markets and 55 GW in the pipeline in just from the processes in the parent company
collaboration with Lightsource Renewable five years.² which are often designed for a different
Energy, investing $200 million for a type of business. External talent can infuse
LightsourceBP is being fully integrated into
43 percent stake.¹ Two years later, this an entrepreneurial mindset and drive rapid
BP’s Gas and Low Carbon unit, after BP
collaboration became LightsourceBP, a expansion. However, such independence
announced it was acquiring its outstanding
50:50 joint venture. For BP, it offered potentially sacrifices benefits like access
50 percent stake, aiming to share the
a way to establish a start-up-minded to the parent company’s customer base,
capabilities, experience, and learnings
renewables business with solar expertise. stakeholder network, distribution channels,
from their other technologies (for example,
Conversely, Lightsource Renewable Energy and assets. It also necessitates establishing
onshore wind).3
gained credibility, capital, and process its new processes, systems, and
standardization through the BP association, What can we learn from this? Opting for this support functions.
leading to rapid growth in the pipeline from level of independence for the new venture
1 “The deal on the Lightsource deal,” BP, March 15, 2018.
2 “Better together: Five years of Lightsource bp,” BP, December 14, 2022.
3
“BP agrees to take full ownership of Lightsource bp,” BP, November 30, 2023.
Integration into the existing structure Renewables goes through a journey with varying levels
of integration over time” to read the story of how EDP
Many incumbents choose to set up a new energy evolved the level of integration of their renewables
business within their existing structure, with varying business over time). This is a choice we also see in
degrees of independence. The level of independence Equinor and others where the business is kept closer
may vary over time, driven by the maturity of the to the core when incubated and, over time, given more
business, the type of technology, and perceived independence as it matures.
synergies with the core business (see sidebar “EDP

EDP Renewables goes through a journey with varying levels of integration over time
EDP Renewables (EDPR), one of the largest was tasked with developing, building, and and expansion. Over time EDP and EDPR’s
renewables players in the world, has been operating renewable energy projects, with a story has remained closely intertwined. This
through a journey in terms of its level particular emphasis on wind power. is a story about creating a renewables unit
of independence. flexible enough to grow in an environment
Over the years, EDPR experienced
closer to a start-up than the conventional
EDPR’s origin story is closely tied to EDP’s significant growth and in 2008, EDPR
business with the ability to raise external
strategic decision to expand into the completed its initial public offering (IPO),
capital needed to do so. EDP always retained
renewable energy sector. In 2006, EDP becoming a publicly traded company.¹ This
more than 70 percent ownership of their
created a dedicated division focused on move allowed it to access additional capital
EDPR listed subsidiary and they continue to
renewable energy, which laid the foundation for its renewable energy projects and
be core to EDP with a shared CEO and CFO.²
for what would become EDPR. This division signaled its commitment to further growth
1 Alex Bugge, “EDP raises $2,4 bln in renewables unit IPO,” Reuters, June 2, 2008; EDP Renováveis announces launch of its IPO at a price range of €7.40 to €8.90 per share,” EDP,
May 15, 2008.
2 Capital markets day, EDP, 2023.
A more integrated new energy business, especially in The first factor to consider is the steering model of
the early phases, allows incumbents to provide their the new business. In addition, incumbents need to
new ventures with advantages not available to an decide what level of control the core business will have
independent venture. These include customer access, over the new energy business, and which part of the
brand recognition, negotiation leverage, stakeholder business sets the strategy and targets for the new
relations, existing base of suppliers, talent, intellectual venture. Capital allocation needs to be considered as
property, distribution capabilities, as well as easier does the talent approach. Where will the new energy
access to capital. venture source its talent and capabilities—from within
the core business or from outside the core? And,
There is still a spectrum in terms of the level of
lastly, what are the operational processes that the new
integration across five relevant dimensions: steering
venture will use, and specifically, which parts of the
model, who sets targets, capital allocation process,
business are involved in project delivery?
talent approach, and operational processes (Exhibit 2).

Exhibit 2
Five key choices drive the level of integration of new energy businesses.
Five key choices drive the level of integration of new energy businesses.
Key choices Integration levels Example businesses

More More Utility Oil Oil
independent integrated major 1 major 2
1 2 3 1 2 3
1 Steering model New energy New energy New energy

What level of business has business sets its business is highly
control does the full control only own direction but reliant on the core
core business constrained by high must follow similar business
have over the new level directional core processes and
energy business? frame leverage central
teams where
applicable
2 Strategy and New energy New energy New energy

targets business business is business is
Which part of the independently accountable for heavily involved
business sets develops strategy the strategy and but strategy and
strategy and and targets within targets but needs targets for the
targets for the directional frame to leverage the new business are
new energy strategy team from developed in the
business? the core business central strategy unit
3 Capital allocation New energy New energy New energy

How does the new business gets business gets an business competes
energy business an envelope and envelope and needs for capital for
access the can fully decide approval from core projects with
required capital? within that business to release core business
funding for projects
4 Talent approach New employees are Combine new Combine new hires
Where do the hired on potentially hires and hires into the new energy
green businesses different contracts from the core venture, lean on
source talent and and can build a new business and follow central HR team
capabilities from? culture people processes to execute and
directionally follow exact same
processes and
compensation
strategy
5 Operational New energy New energy Central projects and

processes business business leads on tech organizations
Which parts of the delivers projects project delivery, are accountable to
business are independently, leveraging help deliver new energy
involved in project with own tech and from central projects, with limited
delivery? projects teams projects and tech involvement from
organizations new energy teams'
past development
McKinsey & Company

Organizations make different choices on each of these gas). Lean and efficient processes help manage
five dimensions when setting up their new energy project delivery, reduce overheads, and allocate
business. However, for capital allocation, we do see resources effectively. In addition, designing
a trend that the large majority chooses to allocate projects with scalability in mind is essential.
an envelope to the new business with stage gates to The new business could be set up to replicate
release funding. For their talent approach, many of the successful project models in different markets,
oil and gas majors start out using a very integrated HR minimizing the need for reinventing the wheel.
process but over time move to more independence for
4. Create shortcuts for decision-making
the new businesses.
processes and avoid red tape. A parent
Integrating a new business into the core traditional company’s bureaucracy can limit the ability to
business of an incumbent does not come without make quick decisions. The new business could
risks. It is important to make sure entrenched ways be allowed to make swift decisions without
of working, relatively cumbersome processes being bogged down by bureaucratic processes.
(compared to those of a start-up), cultural norms, A streamlined decision-making framework
and mindsets do not hamper the success of the new accelerates the response to market opportunities
venture. Incumbents must be mindful of the risks and and challenges.
purposefully mitigate those.
5. Freedom in talent acquisition and retention.
Based on our experience, eight imperatives are Attracting and retaining top talent is crucial. The
starting to emerge that leaders could consider when setup could enable the new energy business to
starting a new business that is integrated within the recruit skilled professionals who are passionate
existing business: about the renewable energy sector. Offering
competitive compensation, growth opportunities,
1. Avoid short-term earnings pressure. Start-ups
and a compelling employee value proposition
often prioritize market share and scale over short-
(EVP) is vital to building a talented workforce.
term profits. If a parent company pressures its
new businesses to meet return thresholds similar 6. Allow for partnerships and ecosystem
to the parent company’s, they are more likely to integration. Building strategic partnerships
make decisions that limit long-term prospects. within the new energy ecosystem can accelerate
growth. Collaborating with other industry
2. Provide rapid access to capital. Access to capital
players, research institutions, and start-ups can
is fundamental for scaling. The operating model
provide access to complementary capabilities,
could facilitate securing the necessary funding
technologies, and markets.
for projects, whether through internal resources,
external investments, or partnerships. Financial 7. Autonomy when setting up enabling services
flexibility is key to seizing growth opportunities and platforms. Our research shows that
when they arise. successful business builders grant their new
businesses considerable autonomy in core IT,
3. Allow customization of core processes and
marketing, data and analytics, and HR while
project design. Streamlining operational
making sure the new business stays aligned with
processes is essential for cost-effectiveness and
the overall strategy of the company.10
scalability in a low-margin industry (especially
compared to major capital projects in oil and
10 2021 Global report: The state of new-business building, McKinsey, December 6, 2021.

8. Entrepreneurial culture, aligned with the can be provided while balancing the need to create
values of parent company. Ensure that the new a lean, fast-growing organization with a different
business’s culture, while different, aligns with metabolic rate than the traditional business.
the mission and values of the parent company. A
cohesive cultural framework fosters collaboration, Once the corporate structure and level of
knowledge sharing, and a sense of purpose. independence versus integration have been
chosen and the business has started, the
By carefully considering these critical factors next questions arise. How do you accelerate
incumbents can position themselves for rapid growth growth and scaling in terms of project pipeline,
and success in a competitive and evolving industry. required workforce, and capability building?
The first steps for incumbents In terms of growing rapidly, new businesses can
look at acquisitions as one potential avenue for
Choosing an operating model for a new energy
accelerating growth. An acquisition not only provides
business isn’t a matter of right or wrong—it’s about
access to physical assets and partnerships, it also
being clear on the choices and consequences. Striking
offers access to a new talent pool when executed
the balance between dependence and independence
well. For example, new businesses were 25 percent
to harness both the strengths of incumbency and the
more likely to significantly exceed expectations
agility of start-ups is a complex challenge. The next
when they made two acquisitions early in the scaling
steps for established energy majors involve carefully
process compared to businesses that made no
weighing the options, understanding the spectrum
acquisitions or that made three or more.11 The new
of integration, and mitigating potential risks.
venture may need an “acquisition playbook” to
ensure successful integration and retention of talent
To navigate this transformative journey successfully,
and constant screening of acquisition targets.
leaders can consider various factors, including
how much the new venture would benefit from
For talent strategy, the new business could
customer access, brand recognition, negotiation
focus on improving its EVP scores to attract
leverage, stakeholder relations, existing base of
and retain talent. Leaders could consider their
suppliers, talent, intellectual property, distribution
EVP right from the start by designing an action
capabilities, as well as easier access to capital.
plan that gives them a talent advantage.
They can also ask whether any of these benefits
11 2021 Global report: The state of new-business building, McKinsey, December 6, 2021.

On the leadership front, leaders need to operate with ―
substantially greater speed and entrepreneurialism
New energy businesses have the potential to thrive,
when entering the new energy sector. They may
and many incumbents are eager to enter this high-
need to develop innovative ways of collaborating,
growth space. The operating model that energy
both within their organizations and in the emerging
players choose can directly impact the success of their
energy ecosystems. A major challenge is attracting
new business, and incumbents need to decide what
and retaining talent in an environment where
strategy would best suit their business needs. This
traditional energy companies are under intense
decision is only the beginning, but it can pave the way
negative public pressure. These leadership
for future success.
challenges will be more keenly felt in the more
integrated operating model, where leaders have to
be the bridge between the old and new worlds.
Esmee Bergman is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Oslo office; Ignacio Fantaguzzi is a partner in the Houston office;
Christopher Handscomb is a partner in the London office, where Phil Quadri is an associate partner; and Jesper Ludolph is a
partner in the Bengaluru office.
The authors wish to thank Alessandro Agosta, Andre Anacleto, Robert Belanger, Giorgio Bresciani, Oriane Chamoun, Sherlyn Chen,
Tom Coxon, Lena Lindvall, Hege Nordahl, Francesco Parente, Des Paschou, and Christian Repole for their contributions to
this article.

Five features of
operational excellence
in oil and gas
organizations
New McKinsey analysis shows that while asset-centric models on
average produce better results, function-centric models tend to
perform more consistently.
By Robert Belanger, Christopher Handscomb, and Aïsha Lemsom.

Operating models are emerging as a crucial outcomes—measured as higher production efficiency
performance differentiator as upstream oil and gas and lower operating costs—they also experience a
operators seek to improve the resiliency of their wide range of outcomes. The function-centric model
businesses amid energy transition uncertainty. tends to produce more consistent results, however,
with lower operational performance.
To understand which types of operating models are
delivering the highest near-term value from efficient Asset-centric models tend to
operations, we evaluated the performance of different
operating models across oil and gas organizations outperform on outcomes
using our Energy Solutions operations benchmarking
On average, asset-centric models have the edge in
database. Analyzing the production and operation
terms of operational performance. Operating costs
cost performance of more than 45 upstream
are generally 6 percent lower when normalized
business units—which operate more than 180 distinct
for asset scale and complexity and show two
assets—highlighted the trade-offs between the two
percentage points higher production efficiency
approaches to managing assets: asset-centric and
than their function-centric counterparts (Exhibit
function-centric models.
3). This translates into tens of millions of dollars
In an asset-centric model, the asset teams are the in cost savings and thousands of barrels a day of
“center of gravity.” All operational decisions are additional production. This outperformance means
made by the asset or business unit leadership, and that the average function-centric business unit
they are also accountable for profit and loss (P&L) was on par with the third-quartile asset-centric
results. Asset-centric models tend to embed technical business unit in terms of production efficiency.
and functional support within an asset team or
business unit. However, there is a trade-off between higher
average performance and greater variability. Asset-
In contrast, a function-centric model is where
centric models have a wider range of outcomes
functional teams are responsible for the outcomes
on both operating cost and production efficiency
in their respective domains. Decisions within a
than function-centric models. This occurs in both
function’s remit require the approval of the functional
directions—the best outcomes for asset-centric
team, and in some instances, P&L accountability
models are better than the best outcomes that can
may be shared between functional and asset or
be achieved when using function-centric models, but
business unit leadership. In this model, functions are
the opposite is also true. The worst outcomes when
often centralized into global teams that support the
using an asset-centric model are far worse than the
company’s entire asset base.
potentially bad outcomes of a function-centric model.
The results of this analysis indicate that while asset-
centric models tend to achieve better operational

Exhibit 3
Asset-centric operators tend to average better cost and production
Asset-centric operators tend to average better cost and production efficiency but
experience a wider range of outcomes.
Cost versus production efficiency by business unit
High Function-centric¹
Asset-centric²
Global
median
Increasing
production
(higher is better)
Low
Global median
Low Increasing cost performance index High
(lower is better)³
% (higher is better) Cost performance index³ (lower is better)

High Maximum High Maximum
Top quartile Third quartile
Average Average
Third quartile Top quartile
+2 pp
Minimum Minimum
–6%
Low Low
Asset- Function- Asset- Function-
centric centric centric centric
1
cision making includes asset
and BU leadership and functional team leaders.
2
Asset-centric model is where P&L ownership is primarily held within asset or BU leadership and operational decisions are owned by asset or BU leaders.
3
Cost performance index is a measure of operating cost performance normalized for asset complexity scale and indexed to global average normalized cost
performance.

McKinsey & Company
Enabling operational excellence: Function-centric models hold
Five success factors their own advantages
Based on our extensive work with operators, However, function-centric models are not doomed
our experience indicates that asset-centric to poor performance. In fact, they might have some
operating models can far outperform function- distinct advantages that can support broader
centric models because they streamline and boost strategic goals. Function-centric operators
performance through five crucial characteristics: typically have a deep talent pool of expertise
they can pull from to take on extreme technical
Simplicity. High-performance assets tend to challenges, like establishing infrastructure in a
have operating models underpinned by simplified new region, supporting large capacity expansion
processes and minimal reporting lines. projects, or integrating different asset types in a
merger or acquisition, as it can be optimized across
Control. Functional and technical support is carefully assets and countries. An example of where this
controlled, with integrated teams embedded in model would be very beneficial for these types of
the asset creating an empowered frontline. challenges is during major project procurement
and rig sequencing. Because they tend to achieve
Expertise. Staffing is tailored to each asset’s needs,
more consistent results, this can be reassuring to
with the required expertise embedded into the asset
investors and provide stability after market shocks.
team and expressly dedicated to that team. Asset
team leadership tends to have extensive experience With some targeted changes, function-centric
within a particular asset or region (often more than models could get the best of both worlds by adopting
20 years) while function-centric leadership often the winning principles exhibited by asset-centric
rotates in and out of postings every few years. operators. For example, function-centric operators
can adopt transparency in functions to help drive
Efficiency. Workforces are streamlined with limited
efficiency, challenging costs and support levels to
layers between asset leadership and the frontline.
ensure the right level of technical and functional
They tend to have an optimally sized workforce,
support per dollar spent. Functional operators can
with high levels of visibility into the corporate
further streamline their operations by optimizing
function’s costs, which helps drive efficiency.
organizational reporting layers and emphasizing more
time in the seat for asset and business unit managers.
Accountability. High asset performance is
incentivized for the whole team, KPIs cascade down
―
to the frontline, and performance is reviewed regularly
to ensure transparency. Asset-centric leadership Evaluating the effectiveness of your operating model
bears a high degree of ownership for performance is a critical and often overlooked lever that operators
outcomes because there is no tangential functional can pull on to drive performance and cost efficiency.
leadership to deflect blame; they are ultimately Identifying and implementing the right model can
responsible for the results of their specific units. significantly improve performance, and our study
indicates that asset-centricity may be the way forward
for many oil and gas organizations.
Robert Belanger is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Houston office; Christopher Handscomb is a partner in the London office;
and Aïsha Lemsom is an associate partner in the Amsterdam office.
The authors wish to thank Tyler Goldsmith for his contributions to this article.

The productivity prize
in oil and gas: Lessons
from top performers
Workforce productivity varies significantly across upstream oil and
gas companies. Understanding the productivity gap—and the three
levers to close it—could boost company performance and resilience.
By Robert Belanger and Christopher Handscomb

In their efforts to improve margins, many upstream Analyzing the productivity gap
oil and gas players are turning their attention to
workforce productivity. This focus on productivity may The productivity gaps we observed between upstream
prove especially important given industry headwinds: oil and gas companies are substantial—a top quartile
a looming retirement wave, the sometimes negative peer can deliver 150 percent of the output of the
perception of the traditional energy sector among average organization with the same-sized workforce.
younger generations, significant talent outflow from Remarkably, this increase in productivity does not
the industry, and increasing competition for talent and come at a cost in terms of operational performance—
capital from new energy industries—all of which are top quartile peers on average have similar levels
likely to make it harder for oil and gas producers to of production efficiency and safety performance,
maintain and improve their productivity. delivering these outcomes with lower operating cost.13
A recent study of workforce productivity in the Top quartile organizations are delivering 2.5 times
upstream oil and gas industry, using McKinsey’s the drilling activity, managing more complex
Energy Solutions Organization Benchmark, found reservoirs, operating twice the number of assets,
a substantial productivity gap across operators.12 and spending 20 percent less on maintenance
Analysis of over 50 business units from more than 30 costs. Top performers can also deliver the same
oil and gas companies from the global dataset found output as an average peer with 40 percent fewer
that the most productive companies were 150 percent full-time equivalent (FTE) employees (Exhibit 4).
more productive than the average operator. This
productivity gap is driven by all functions across the
typical organization. Analysis of these top performers
indicates there is significant room for improvement
for much of the sector, representing a major
“productivity prize.”
A top quartile peer can deliver 150 percent

of the output of the average organization
with the same-sized workforce.
12 McKinsey Energy Solutions Organization Benchmark, July, 2023.

Exhibit 4
The
The most
mostproductive
productiveoperators
operatorscan can
achieve the same
achieve the outcomes as peers as
same outcomes with a
peers
fraction of the organizational resources.
with a fraction of the organizational resources.
Organization size, normalized for operator activity, %

100
~60
~40
3Q peers Average BU TQ peers
Source: McKinsey Energy Solutions O&G Organization Benchmark
McKinsey & Company
Measuring productivity hours and financial output, including revenue.14

However, these measures typically mask many of
in a targeted way the underlying reasons for high or low productivity,
and do not consider the nuances of each individual
One of the most important ways to assess
organization or provide specific insights into which
organizational performance is to measure
levers have the greatest productivity potential.
productivity and the potential to improve it.
At its core, and simplest means of expression,
Measuring staffing intensity offers an alternative
productivity is the output for a given input.
approach that assesses workforce size per unit
of activity, or the number of FTE employees and
Traditionally, workforce or labor productivity has
contractors (input) per unit of activity (output)—an
been measured by labor input such as working
inverse of productivity. An advantage of this approach
14 “Productivity measures: Business sector and major subsectors,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 23, 2020.

over traditional productivity measures is that it complex roles, highlighting the potential that can be
provides a way to normalize for different activities unlocked by focusing on people levers.15 However,
conducted by different functions. The activity set people levers are often enabled or magnified
for Finance and Accounting, for example, looks very by improvements to process and structure.
different from the activity set for the Subsurface
or Wells functions, and traditional methods of Process levers can be used to streamline workflows,
productivity measurement make it hard to compare improve the efficiency of decision making, or
across functions. It also provides a way to adjust enhance technology systems to support more
for structural differences between companies efficient processes (for example, deploying
for things like scale, portfolio composition, asset advanced analytics systems in maintenance
complexity, and growth plans. Different “activity processes to improve equipment reliability).
drivers” are used to normalize each function’s size
to provide a like-for-like comparison against peers. Finally, structure levers include reconfiguring the
For example, reservoir complexity can be used as an “boxes and lines” of how the company is organized to
activity driver for the Subsurface function, while an better align to sources of value creation. For example,
index of drilling activity could be used for the Wells our research shows that an asset-centric axis of
function. This removes any differences in performance organization can yield better operational performance
due to factors outside of productivity and ways of than a function-centric orientation (see article, “Five
working, which helps managers understand their features of operational excellence in oil and gas
organization’s true productivity opportunities. organizations”). This includes rethinking the location
footprint to provide better access to assets and
talent or altering roles and responsibilities to align the
How operators improve highest performers with the biggest sources of value.
their productivity
McKinsey’s oil and gas workforce productivity study
There are many levers that organizations can pull on found that the productivity prize applies across all
to drive productivity. These fall into the three main functions, both technical and nontechnical, meaning
categories of people, processes, and structure. there is no one functional culprit for low productivity
(Exhibit 5). Rather, leading producers tend to apply
People levers include improving the culture to multiple levers across multiple functions to drive
create a more collaborative work environment, holistic productivity improvements. Sometimes,
reconsidering the size of the workforce, enhancing a specific functional transformation is needed
talent through skills building (for example, multiskilling (such as a financial system digital transformation)
offshore personnel), and acquiring talent from in order to enable additional operating model
outside the company. McKinsey research shows changes to drive productivity improvements.
that the best performers are 800 percent more
productive than the average employee in highly
15 Scott Keller, “Attracting and retaining the right talent,” McKinsey, November 24, 2017.

Exhibit 5
All functions have

All functions havesubstantial
substantialproductivity improvement
productivity potential.
improvement potential.
Normalized staffing intensity by selected function¹
Subsurface Wells Production operations Maintenance

and logistics and reliability
Avg Avg Avg Avg
TQ TQ TQ TQ
–25 –40 –25 –30
Compared to the 25% 40% 25% 30%

Average Operator,
fewer subsurface fewer wells fewer production fewer maintenance
TQ Operators have …
FTEs or FTEs or ops and logistics and reliability
FTEs or FTEs or
30% 2.5× 2× 20%

more reservoir more drilling number of less spend on
complexity activity operated assets maintenance
1
Non-exhaustive. Normalized staffing intensity measures the number of Full Time Equivalents (FTEs for both employees and contractors) per unit of activity
driver, which varies by function (for subsurface, reservoir complexity; for wells, drilling activity; for production operations and logistics, operated asset scale and
complexity; for maintenance and reliability, maintenance activity spend).
Source: McKinsey Energy Solutions O&G Organization Benchmark
McKinsey & Company
― they face pressure to provide affordable, reliable,

secure, and cleaner energy. A holistic approach that
The upstream oil and gas productivity gap—and
encompasses people, processes, and structure could
on the flipside, the potential productivity prize—
help under-pressure oil and gas producers achieve the
presents a significant opportunity for upstream oil
productivity levels of their top-performing peers.
and gas companies to improve their resiliency as
Robert Belanger is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Houston office and Christopher Handscomb is a partner in the
London office.
The authors wish to thank Corryn Bourgeois for her contributions to this article.

Talent
Talent squeeze:
Planning for the energy
sector’s talent transition
Amid increased demand, an aging workforce, and decreased
recruitment levels, the energy sector’s talent pool is under pressure.
Five strategies can help executives fill their talent pipeline.
By Ignacio Fantaguzzi, Christopher Handscomb, Iyad Sheikh, and Aly Torres

As the energy transition gathers pace, there is an gained in oil and gas are relatively easy to transfer
increasing need for energy talent. The global demand to green energy businesses including carbon
for oil and gas is projected to remain roughly stable, capture and storage (CCS), hydrogen, and wind.
while indicators point to substantial growth in supply
from new energy sources by 2035.16 The energy CCS has the greatest transferability of both
industry is therefore facing two significant and knowledge and experience, which is unsurprising
interacting areas of talent demand: securing talent given that many oil and gas companies have been
to build and run fast-growing new energy businesses capturing and storing carbon for some time.
and maintaining core talent for traditional oil and Hydrogen has fairly high transferability for most
gas production. knowledge areas, though challenges remain
regarding experience, especially in business
While demand for energy talent is growing, the energy development, commercial roles, and supply
sector is expecting to lose a substantial portion of chain partnering. Offshore wind has the lowest
its existing workforce; in the United States alone, relative transferability of these three, though
as many as 400,000 employees in the sector are it still offers ample opportunity for upstream
approaching retirement, expected to retire in the next employees to move into the new energy space.19
10 years.17 Given the oil and gas industry’s negative
perception among younger workers, traditional energy McKinsey’s Organization Data Platform analyzed
businesses may find themselves at the short end of an publicly available data from LinkedIn to explore the
upcoming talent squeeze. talent circumstances of new energy businesses
globally. They found that employees in the hydrogen
Transferable competencies can space hold similar degree subjects to the degrees of
help meet talent demand those in traditional exploration and production (E&P)
(Exhibit 6). This overlap underscores the high level of
Demand for talent from new energy businesses is knowledge transferability between roles and indicates
likely to increase rapidly over the coming decade.18 that there may be growing competition for talent
The good news for renewable energy employers between traditional and new energy businesses.
is that knowledge, expertise, and competencies
The good news for renewable energy employers

is that knowledge, expertise, and competencies
gained in oil and gas are relatively easy to
transfer to green energy businesses.
16 Global Energy Perspective 2023, McKinsey, October 18, 2023.
17 Current Population Survey, United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022.
18 Global Energy Perspective 2023, McKinsey, October 18, 2023; Statistical review of world energy, Energy Institute, 2023.

Exhibit 6
There is high overlap in degree subject between traditional upstream and

There is high overlap in degree subject between traditional upstream and
hydrogen talent.
hydrogen talent.
Top 15 degree subjects for hydrogen talent, August 2023,¹ number
Business administration 453

Chemical engineering 406
Mechanical engineering 369
Finance 117
Economics 107
Chemistry 104
Electrical engineering 73
Physics 62
Project management 59
Law 45
Education 40
Industrial engineering 38
Aerospace engineering 35
Accounting 34
1
n = 4,926.
Source: LinkedIn; McKinsey Org Data Platform
McKinsey & Company
McKinsey also looked at the tenure of those in experience.20 This means that hydrogen businesses
hydrogen-related roles and found that nearly four- could struggle to find experienced people to fill
fifths of employees have worked in the space for less positions and will need to establish programs to
than five years and only 10 percent of the total talent rapidly build expertise.
pool have more than ten years of hydrogen-related
20 Organization Data Platform, McKinsey, September, 2023; LinkedIn; McKinsey Org Data Platform.

Traditional upstream businesses from new energy businesses, and workforce
demographics that point to a looming talent crunch.
continue to need talent
In the United States, over a quarter of employees
Meanwhile, demand for talent from traditional oil and
are at or near retirement age, many of whom are
gas companies is not going away. Globally, McKinsey
frontline workers (Exhibit 7). In the United Kingdom,
expects to see broadly consistent demand for workers
demographics are similar, with 43 percent of
through to at least 2035.21 Meeting this demand
offshore workers currently over the age of 45.22
could be challenging amid growing competition
Exhibit 7
The oil and gas workforce is aging, with particular challenges among
The oil and gas workforce is aging, with particular challenges among the frontline.
the frontline.
Percent of employees in each occupation, %
Facilities First-line supervisors of Maintenance and All engineers and Average,

managers mechanics, installers, and repairers repair workers engineering technicians all occupations
50
40
30
20
10
0
16–19 years 20–24 years 25–34 years 35–44 years 45–54 years 55–65+ years
Source: US Bureau Labor Statistics from Current Population Survey (CPS) 2022
McKinsey & Company
22 Workforce insight, Offshore Energies United Kingdom, 2022.

While this does not exactly represent a retirement mid-tenure employees have new opportunities in
cliff, it does emphasize the importance of maintaining adjacent industries, and data indicates that fewer
a healthy recruitment pipeline into traditional oil and new employees are entering this workforce. The
gas businesses over the coming decade. Energy percentage of employees with less than two years of
companies will also need to reckon with—and develop tenure dropped from 16 percent in 2012 to less than 4
plans to address—the impending loss of a valuable percent in 2022.
source of technical skills, industry knowledge, and
institutional expertise. Thinking creatively about how An improved value proposition
to manage this aspect of the talent transition now could attract fresh talent
could spur innovation, alternative work approaches,
and an entry of fresh talent into the sector.23 Another challenge is that the oil and gas sector
may not be perceived as attractive by potential
Competition for employees is also heating up. Since
employees. Research shows that a compelling
2016, out of all the employees who left their roles in
employee value proposition (EVP) is strongly
energy and materials companies, 42 percent moved
correlated with lower attrition rates and that this
to a different industry.24 This underlines the very
is an important and influential notion for younger
competitive nature of attracting and retaining talent
generations (see article Employee retention trends
within the sector.
and challenges in the oil and gas industry).
Companies that lack a clear talent strategy could
face a talent shortage in the years to come. As one To understand the impact of EVP in the traditional
upstream executive put it, “The average age of our rig upstream sector, McKinsey examined employee
workers is 58 years old. We expect them to retire in ten satisfaction across industries on a range of
years, but the life of our asset is 20 years. We currently dimensions. While oil and gas still scores above
don’t have a fact-based view on how big the problem is average for compensation, it is towards the bottom
or how we are addressing it in the future.” of the pack for career opportunities, corporate
culture, and perceptions of senior management. In
Hiring talent to backfill critical roles and fill new
short, oil and gas companies tend to score lower on
roles presents a unique set of obstacles in the
their EVP relative to other industries (Exhibit 8).
energy sector. Experienced workers are retiring,
Since 2016, out of all the employees who left

their roles in energy and materials companies,
42 percent moved to a different industry.
23 “Renewable-energy development in a net-zero world,” McKinsey, October 28, 2022.
24 “Great Attrition, Great Attraction 2.0 Global Survey,” McKinsey, 2023.

Exhibit 8
Oil and gas lags many peer industries in several key dimensions of their value
Oil and gas lags many peer industries in several key dimensions of their value
proposition to employees.
proposition to employees.
Rating¹ relative to peer-industry average,² %
Compensation
4 3 3
0 –2 –3 –3
–1 –1
TMT Aerospace O&G Advanced Chemicals Automotive Banking Basic Insurance
and defense electronics materials
Career opportunities
5 4
2 1
–2 –2 –3
–1 –4
Aerospace TMT Banking Advanced Basic Chemicals O&G Insurance Automotive

and defense electronics materials
Culture
7
3 1 1 0
–1 –1 –3
–6
Advanced Aerospace Basic
electronics and defense Insurance materials Chemicals O&G
TMT Banking Automotive
Senior management
7
3 1 0 0 0
–2
–4 –5
TMT Banking Advanced Aerospace Basic Insurance Chemicals O&G Automotive

electronics and defense materials
1
Based on Glassdoor ratings from employee reviews in the US from 2018 to 2023. Reviews are gathered for the top 100 largest companies (by head count) per
industry; total sample consists of 475,000 reviews across nine peer industries.
2
Denotes the percentage difference in ratings for companies within a specific industry and the average sentiment across the peer industries.
McKinsey & Company

However, employees perceive oil and gas companies satisfaction (3.8 on a scale of one to five). On the other
differently across regions, and EVP scores differ end, employees from Northern Africa, North America,
significantly (see sidebar, “Employee value the Middle East, and the Pacific Islands rated their
proposition”). Oil and gas employee satisfaction is work–life balance lowest, at 3.5, respectively. On
generally lower in developed markets, whereas jobs in average, Central Asian and Russian employees ranked
oil and gas are still seen as one of the most desirable their employers highest in terms of culture (4.1), career
placements for top talent in many parts of the world. opportunities (3.8), and senior management (3.7),
These regional differences may play an increasingly while North American employees expressed lower
important role in talent decisions for global operators ratings across all categories except compensation,
in the years ahead. where Caribbean and Latin American employers
ranked highest at 3.9.²⁵
When rating their employers in terms of work–life
balance, European employees reported the highest
Employee value proposition
An EVP defines the unique promise made to employees regarding experiences and benefits that they can expect to
receive from a company. Effective value propositions typically encompass four components: the company’s purpose,
values, and culture; its leadership, which includes the employee relationship with managers; the employee’s role
(including developmental opportunities); as well as their rewards, including intangible benefits, such as the ability to be
home every night at a consistent hour.
Charting a course through 1. Building strategic talent plans. A successful talent

strategy most often hinges on facts rather than
the talent transition intuition when it comes to understanding future
talent needs and is anchored in the company’s
Executives in traditional oil and gas businesses may
strategic and business goals. Talent plans can be
need to think about driving talent transformation
built up from project-level talent needs to inform
to underpin long-term success.²⁶ To do this, senior
an integrated skill-based talent view. Executives
leaders could focus on the following five areas and
could consider: which roles are likely to be
address the associated underlying questions:
impacted by retirement in the next six months,
26 “Agile transformation in heavy industries: An interview with SOCAR Türkiye,” McKinsey, March 21, 2023.

one year, three years, and five years? What are evolution process. It was able to address short-
the critical capabilities needed? What are the and medium-term talent challenges head on.
underlying drivers of attrition? Where are the
existing hidden pockets of talent with required 3. Modernizing ways of working to meet rising
skill sets? Do we want to take an incremental employee expectations and increase
approach to manage our talent transition, or productivity. There has been continued uptake
do we need to drastically correct course? of agile teaming and increasing sophistication
when devising flexible working policies. Leaders
For example, one leading aerospace and defence could ask themselves how to make priorities
company derisked a $100 million program by clear from top to bottom in the organization?
focusing on trades talent and attrition and Where could we release value between
responded with a clear talent strategy, EVP, functional silos through agile teams? What
and improved use of advanced analytics. It was workplace and hybrid working policies best
able to reach an equilibrium between talent balance employee satisfaction and productivity?
demand and supply to meet its strategic plans. For example, several energy companies
are organizing for agility at scale to improve
2. Renewing efforts to transform the employee results, speed, and employee experience.²⁷
value proposition. Driven by data, the best
efforts aim to achieve specific outcomes. An 4. Taking advantage of global talent markets by
example of this is retaining more senior talent in revisiting technical hub strategies. This is
the industry by changing the work environment. relevant for both traditional and new businesses.
Another is delaying retirement or creating flexible Companies are thinking hard about which
career paths to allow graduate hires to work activities need to be done “close to the assets”
across traditional oil and gas companies and new and which could be undertaken in other regions
energy businesses within the same company. to access the world’s largest engineering talent
Executives can ask: what do our employees pools. Questions include: how do we evolve
really value? What are the risks? How are we our global mobility programs? What type of
measuring success? How will we act faster, more talent is critical to have close to the work—for
nimbly, or under different resource constraints? example, frontline talent—and what can be
sourced elsewhere—for example, talent from
A leading energy company established a talent the same regions? How can we adopt a more
“war room” to bring together resources from global perspective for difficult-to-fill technical
across the organization (including programs, roles? And how do we leverage talent from
human resources, data science, analytics, other countries with renowned engineering or
and IT) to create a faster, more agile, and more technical programs and educational institutions?
streamlined talent management and EVP

Several oil and gas companies are reshaping with knowledge and experience transfer
their technical functions, such as engineering, between generations? What opportunities
to build and grow hubs in other regions. exist to use digital tools to accelerate training
Such moves provide access to large, high- for technical and operational hires?
quality technical talent pools and create
stronger central support models. ―
5. Exploring tech such as generative AI to improve This is an unprecedented time for the energy industry
productivity and augment capabilities. as it transitions into the net-zero world. Like many
Recently, many companies have developed other industries, the talent that oil and gas companies
proof of concepts for generative AI (gen can attract, develop, and retain will shape the
AI) that can allow employees to spend time companies of tomorrow. The key question isn’t so
doing higher-value tasks. Companies could much “How do I get enough talent to deliver on my
ask themselves: how could gen AI tools help plans?” but rather, “How can we confidently use this
transition to our advantage?”
Ignacio Fantaguzzi is a partner in the Houston office, where Aly Torres is a consultant; Christopher Handscomb is a partner in the
London office; and Iyad Sheikh is an associate partner in the Boston office.
The authors wish to thank Giulio Carbone, Evgeniia Levich, Hege Nordahl, Cecily Urnes, and Sirui Wang for their contributions to
this article.

Employee retention
trends and challenges
in the oil and gas
industry
Oil and gas companies are struggling to retain top talent. Focusing
on EVP can improve retention but levers to boost EVP differ widely
across the industry.
By Robert Belanger, Giulio Carbone, and Ignacio Fantaguzzi

In our conversations with oil and gas executives, for longer. While our research suggests that retention
discussions around talent are converging on a dynamics vary strongly across industry subsectors,
theme: companies are finding it increasingly difficult leadership style, more than compensation, is generally
to attract and retain employees, especially since key to driving a distinctive EVP.
skill requirements are changing dramatically in the
decarbonization era.²⁸ Building a distinctive employee EVP scores vary widely
value proposition (EVP)—which is a set of benefits across the industry
that an employee gets for what they give, including
aspects like compensation and benefits, career With the support of the McKinsey People Analytics
opportunities, work–life balance, company culture, experts, who collected publicly available information
and management—could prove pivotal to attracting from LinkedIn and Glassdoor, we analyzed the EVP
and retaining the best talent as compensation for ratings of more than 70 organizations and their
workers heats up. corresponding attrition rates and found a clear
link between low EVP scores and higher levels of
Analyzing more than 70 major organizations across
attrition. We broke down the findings to understand
different parts of the oil and gas value chain, we
how these trends are playing out across the different
found a direct correlation between a company’s EVP
types of major oil and gas companies (Exhibit 9).
score and tenure rates: when a higher EVP score is
observed, employees generally remain at the company
Leadership style, more than compensation, is

generally key to driving a distinctive EVP.
28 For more information on these trends, see: “Renewable-energy development in a net-zero world: Overcoming talent gaps,” McKinsey,
November 4, 2022.

Exhibit 9
Outside-in data of key oil and gas players suggests a link between EVP
and attrition.
Source: LinkedIn and publicly available reviews from data sources including Glassdoor reviews over 2016-2021. LinkedIn sample size, latest year: Downstream:
50112; EPCM: 80844; Major: 365795; Midstream: 26740; NOC: 133590; Services and Equipment: 342595; Upstream: 37081. Glassdoor sample size: Downstream:
5,351; Major: 30,200; Midstream: 3,035; NOC: 7,201; Services and Equipment: 27,801; Upstream: 2,982
The data shows that EVP and retention dynamics are create a more distinctive EVP to better differentiate
specific to the different subindustry segments, and themselves from peers and attract the best talent in
therefore require different “calls to action.” the sector.
Majors—large global oil and gas companies operating National oil companies (NOCs) have the strongest
in different parts of the value chain—are closely position across oil and gas, both in terms of EVP and
aligned in a “midrange” position with a limited degree low attrition, as they are often the leading employers
of differentiation in terms of EVP and attrition rate. in their country’s energy sector and face less national
Most big corporations have an EVP score of between competition for talent. It is important for NOCs to
3.3 and 4.1 (out of a 5-point scale) and corresponding build a well-rounded EVP, leveraging distinctive
attrition rates of 9 to 11 percent. Majors could compensation, benefits, and broader organizational

health to attract unique capabilities and young talent, There are, however, a few outliers that are challenged
not only within national boundaries but also by high attrition. The outliers in the downstream
from abroad. subsector may need to quickly align themselves with
the standards set by their market peers.
Upstream companies are seeing the highest levels
of attrition in the industry, despite their EVP scores Services and equipment companies tend to have
tending to be in line with the sector average. This below-average EVPs and high levels of attrition. Talent
might be related to the high demand for specific in services and equipment companies is generally
technical skills, which are difficult to develop internally in demand outside of the oil and gas industry, and
and are instead acquired through the job market via companies may need to act quickly on their EVP to
competitive offers or outsourced. Other factors may address high attrition rates. As a first step, service
include workers leaving the traditional oil and gas and equipment organizations can investigate the root
industry for new energy companies, or market volatility causes of their high attrition and develop context-
as the energy transition accelerates. specific strategies for better talent retention.
Since the high attrition rate is partially structural in Leadership style is key
this subindustry, upstream companies could focus
on reliable and fast recruitment processes to ensure to driving EVP
continued insourcing of required talent.
We also analyzed the different drivers of EVP across
Midstream companies are closely aligned with low five categories: work–life balance, culture, career
attrition overall and an average EVP. Like majors, opportunities, compensation and benefits, and
midstream companies could create a more distinctive leadership style (Exhibit 10). While differences are not
EVP to differentiate themselves as an employer high, on average, we found that companies in oil and
of choice. gas across subsectors score the lowest in leadership
style and the highest in compensation and benefits.
Downstream companies are closely aligned with
a low attrition rate overall and above-average EVP.

Exhibit 10
The
The major
majorgap
gapfor
foremployee
Employeevalue proposition
Value is notiscompensation
Proposition
not compensation but
but management.
management.
Employee value proposition (EVP) Overall Major NOC Upstream

by specific drivers (values from 1 to 5) Downstream EPCM Midstream
1 2 3 4 5
Work–life
balance
Culture
Career
opportunities
Compensation/
benefits
Leadership
style
Note: Employee value proposition (EVP) is measured as the average rating (from 1 to 5) of user reviews on Glassdoor for a company.
Source: Based on publicly available reviews from data sources including Glassdoor reviews over 2016–2022, April, 2023; Sample size: Downstream: 5,351;
Major: 30,200; Midstream: 3,035; NOC: 7,201; Services and Equipment: 27,801; Upstream: 2,982
McKinsey & Company
These findings have practical implications for how oil ensure that profits are predictably delivered to
and gas companies across different parts of the value shareholders but also that they take a visionary
chain can strengthen their EVP. Regarding leadership stance—engaging employees with a compelling
style, it is important for the CEO and other leaders purpose to deliver impact and value to all external
to be recognizable and charismatic role models, not stakeholders and society.
only within the company but also toward the external
• Designing how value is created: from planner
stakeholders. We have observed that a new leadership
to architect. Rather than taking a traditional,
style is emerging in the industry around five shifts
planner-oriented view focused on capturing a
that change how leaders—and companies’ EVPs—
greater share of the existing value from their
are perceived.²⁹
competitors, leaders can adopt an architect
• Setting focus and direction: from executive to mindset by working with customers and other
visionary. When defining the direction of their external stakeholders to reimagine and disrupt
company, it is important for executives to not only industry norms to generate new value.
29 Anton Derkach, Ignacio Fantaguzzi, Neil Pearse, and Micah Smith, “Powering up new leadership for a changing energy environment,” McKinsey,
February 3, 2023.

• Organizing how people work together: from A step-by-step approach to
director to catalyst. Traditionally, leaders took
a director’s approach to developing defined
strengthening EVP: A case study
organizational structures, with clear roles, The European subsidiary of an oil and gas giant
responsibilities, and authorities. A catalyst found itself facing a shortage of the right talent
approach, by contrast, allows leaders to to address its strategic goals of decarbonization
encourage transparency, collaboration, and and digitalization. While the company was highly
inclusiveness across the organization and regarded by tenured oil and gas professionals, it
externally, guiding empowered teams and cross- was falling short in attracting the new engineering
unit networks with external stakeholders. and digital talents required, especially women.
• Getting work done: from controller to coach.
Leaders can combine the traditional, controller The CEO understood the gravity of the challenge
leadership style with the coach style. In this and closely partnered with the chief human
way, they will operate through detailed analysis resources offices (CHRO) and the rest of
and precise planning to deliver outcomes and the leadership team to attract and retain the
minimize variances, while also focusing on a more right talent through a phased approach:
innovative coaching view, operating through
Aspire. The leadership team worked together to
short cycles of rapid decision making and
translate the business strategy into a compelling
experimentation while learning to respond to
vision for the future, centered on decarbonization
new challenges and opportunities in the
and digitalization, to ignite purpose and passion
external environment.
in current employees and future candidates.
• Showing up as a leader: from expectation-setter
to authentic leader. Blending the traditional Assess. A rigorous approach was followed to listen to
expectation-setter approach of setting clear the “voice of employees” through employee surveys
professional expectations for subordinates (such as our Organizational Health Index), interviews,
with the emerging style of “authentic leader” and focus groups. This was complemented with an
can encourage openness, personal well-being, external diagnostic (using publicly available data from
creativity, and autonomy. LinkedIn and Glassdoor) to identify the current EVP
perception and key opportunities for improvement.
By embracing emerging leadership qualities, industry
The results highlighted that employees were looking
leaders could tailor a unique and powerful leadership
for more emphasis on inclusion and diversity,
style to improve their EVP, attract the right talent, and
flexible working hours to cater to family needs, and
reduce attrition.
a compelling purpose focused on decarbonization.

Architect. Leveraging the insights from the After almost two years since the launch of the
diagnostics, the CHRO, with guidance from other project, the company achieved a leading position
leaders, shaped a cultural and organizational for EVP—within the top-quartile of industry peers—
action plan to address the identified areas for and a CEO rating of over 80 percent. The company
improvement. The company created a compelling is now considered a best-in-class workplace for
EVP with career paths for the specific talent pools women to build a career in the oil and gas industry.
required, a new diversity and inclusion strategy,
and gender quota objectives, and collaborated ―
with leading universities in Europe to improve
Oil and gas companies may need to think beyond
their employer brand among students.
compensation and create a positive working
Act. The defined plan was actioned collaboratively at environment if they want to attract and retain talent—
all levels of the organization. The company mobilized especially as they face increasing competition from
employees to identify change ambassadors to new energy industries requiring competencies that are
drive change in the different units and geographies. easily transferable from the oil and gas industry.
For this activity, data-driven insights from social By improving leadership styles and company
network analyses helped the company identify key dynamics—and therefore EVP scores—employees
actors to catalyze change within the organization. may want to stay with their company longer, allowing
At the same time, top executives embraced the institutional knowledge to grow within the workforce,
new leadership style in line with the five shifts, and ensuring fewer resources are spent on hiring
shaping a different culture and ways of working. and onboarding.
Robert Belanger is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Houston office; Giulio Carbone is an associate partner in the Zurich office;
and Ignacio Fantaguzzi is a partner in the Houston office.
The authors wish to thank Ivan Dyakonov and Evgeniia Levich for their contributions to this article.

Leadership
Powering up new
leadership for a
changing energy
environment
Realizing it can no longer be ‘business as usual,’ industry chiefs need
to transform themselves and their organizations to succeed.
By Anton Derkach, Ignacio Fantaguzzi, Neil Pearse, and Micah Smith
Published on McKinsey.com, February 3, 2023.

Technological, economic, regulatory, and geopolitical These considerations introduce a high degree
forces are driving a rapid evolution of the global of uncertainty about the path ahead, including
energy landscape. Although opinions vary on the how energy supply and demand, competitive and
pace and extent of the resulting transitions, attempts geopolitical dynamics, and societal implications will
to balance energy security, affordability, and long- evolve. One thing is clear, however: the search for
term decarbonization ambitions are contributing to sustainable, reliable, and affordable energy will be at
unprecedented uncertainty about the global the core of global aspirations.
energy future.
Five ways leaders can transform to
While transformation of the global energy mix is not
new, the current transition is larger in scale and more succeed in this shifting landscape
complex than previous ones due to the multitude and
These unprecedented and evolving challenges need
sometimes divergent drivers of the transition. As one
to be tackled by all leaders of companies in the energy
industry CEO summed it up: “The energy industry
sector, from pure-play, new-energy start-ups to more
has basically been static for a long time, although we
traditional oil and gas companies balancing old and
did not know it was static. We’ve now moved from a
new business models, risk profiles, and cultures.
largely internal, incremental agenda, to a whole set of
existential risks and opportunities in front of us.”
Many of the elements of what it takes to succeed
On one hand, the increasing urgency around climate in the evolving energy environment will likely differ
change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is from those experienced in the past. Fresh demands
driving the transition to cleaner energy sources.30 may be placed on leaders, and a fundamentally new
Many countries and corporations have committed approach to leadership will likely be required for
to achieving net-zero emissions within the next few incumbents and start-ups. This is irrespective of the
decades. Early movers—industry incumbents and business strategy adopted—which may range from
pure-play, clean-energy players—are leading the a full pivot to clean energy, to a combination play, to
paradigm shift, disrupting traditional business models an ongoing focus on a core hydrocarbon business
and making permanent structural changes to but with the introduction of emissions abatement.
these industries.
Overall, we see companies—and leaders—needing
On the other hand, the rebound in energy demand to operate with substantially greater speed and
after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, entrepreneurialism, and this is especially applicable in
coupled with supply-side constraints over the past the new energy sector. They may need to develop and
year, have revealed the magnitude of the challenge practice fresh ways of collaborating, both within their
in achieving climate change ambitions. Global energy organizations and in the emerging energy ecosystems.
demand and supply-side variability are expected A major challenge is attracting and retaining talent in
to increase over the next decade. Until alternative an environment where traditional energy companies
energy sources are universally efficient, scalable, and are under intense negative public pressures.
affordable, traditional energy sources and related
infrastructure will continue to play an essential role.
30 Global Energy Perspective 2022, McKinsey, April 26, 2022.

We interviewed 15 C-suite executives across these capabilities. Finally, we layered in data from
organizations in the energy sector to gain their our extensive body of leadership research and
perspectives on the critical leadership capabilities decades of experience helping organizations
required to succeed in this new energy era.31 The with their leadership transformations.
interviews were complemented by a global survey of
more than 140 senior industry leaders. The survey Based on our experience and research, we defined
asked leaders to identify and rate the importance five key roles that leaders typically perform, from
of different leadership capabilities against the setting focus and direction to showing up as a
backdrop of the current macroenvironment, and leader, and identified two broad categories of
to offer their perception on how leaders in their leadership qualities and mindsets, which we have
organizations are currently performing across called “traditional” and “emerging” (Exhibit 11).
Exhibit 11
Traditional and emerging leadership capabilities can be applied across five

Traditional and emerging leadership capabilities can be applied across five key
key roles.
roles.
Traditional Emerging
Setting focus and direction Executive: ensure profits are predictably Visionary: engage people with a compelling
delivered to shareholders, through stable purpose to deliver impact and value to
performance and effective risk customers and all other stakeholders
management
Designing how value is created Planner: focus on beating known Architect: focus on working with customers and
competitors to capture increased broader stakeholders to generate new value
share of existing value through reimagining and disrupting industry
norms
Organizing how people work Director: develop defined organizational Catalyst: develop empowered teams and
together structures with clear roles, cross-unit networks, encouraging transparency,
responsibilities, and authorities collaboration, and inclusiveness across the
organization and externally
Getting work done Controller: operate through detailed Coach: operate through short cycles of rapid
analysis, planning, and control to deliver decisions, experimentation, and learning to
outcomes and minimize respond to new challenges and uncover new
variances opportunities
Showing up as a leader Expectation-setter: lead with focus on Authentic leader: lead with authenticity and
setting clear professional expectations openness, encouraging personal well-being,
for subordinates and managing for creativity, and autonomy
defined delivery
McKinsey & Company
31 McKinsey global survey of senior industry leaders.

The survey results illustrate a high level of agreement We observed a larger gap between desired and
from respondents on the importance of emerging current levels of competency for emerging leadership
leadership qualities and mindsets to succeed in the qualities and mindsets. This is unsurprising, as
new energy environment, while reiterating the ongoing successful leaders and executives have practiced and
relevance of traditional qualities (Exhibit 12). honed the traditional qualities for many years.
Exhibit 12
There is an increased gap between the desired and current levels of competency
There is an increased
for emerging gap mindsets.
qualities and between the desired and current levels of
competency for emerging qualities and mindsets.
Participant responses Competency Size of gap
1 Not Important or underperforming Current level Desired level Small gap (<0.5) Medium gap
2 Large gap (≥1.0) (≥0.5, <1.0)
3 Moderately important or performing 25th–27th percentile range
4
5 Very important or overperforming
Traditional leadership Emerging leadership

qualities qualities
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Executive 0.6 1.5 Visionary
Planner 0.3 1.4 Architect
Director 0.0 1.5 Catalyst
Controller 0.4 1.7 Coach
Expectation- 0.8 1.1 Authentic

setter leader
Global survey senior industry leaders; n = 140.
McKinsey & Company

A closer look at the data suggests that some Shifting one’s mindset and embracing emerging
traditional leadership qualities are more important leadership qualities can be a challenge for senior
than others. For example, being an effective executive leaders who have relied on traditional tool kits.
delivering financial returns for shareholders continues However, there is also a great opportunity here.
to be a prerequisite, and detailed planning and During our research, many sector leaders expressed
working toward defined delivery is still important. excitement about building and leading new kinds of
organizations, and designing them to succeed today
In terms of emerging qualities, numerous respondents
and in the future. There was also much enthusiasm
highlighted the importance of meeting stakeholder
about the prospect of exhibiting greater purpose,
expectations, with growing pressure on energy
promoting employee empowerment, facilitating
firms beyond creating value for their shareholders.
collaboration inside and outside their organizations,
Furthermore, there is clear recognition of the need for
and operating with higher levels of agility
new leadership approaches to operate through shorter
and entrepreneurialism.
decision cycles and with greater experimentation,
and to take advantage of market fluctuations and What does this leadership transformation require? We
emerging and uncertain new-energy opportunities. see it as including five key unlocks, involving mindset
and behavioral shifts (Exhibit 13).
Exhibit 13
The leadership transformation requires five key unlocks.

The leadership transformation requires five key unlocks.
Traditional Emerging
leadership leadership
1. Setting focus Executive Profit Impact Visionary

and direction
2. Designing how Planner Architect

Competition Cocreation
value is created
3. Organizing how Director Catalyst

Command Collaboration
people work
4. Getting work Controller Coach

Control Evolution
done
5. Showing up as a Expectation-setter Professional Human Authentic leader

leader
McKinsey & Company

1. Setting focus and direction: attract and retain talent and ensures these individuals
thrive. Investors understand why this is valuable,
Beyond profit to impact and factor purpose into their decision making.
The purpose of any organization is to create value
Crafting a compelling, purposeful narrative is
for its stakeholders. In today’s open environment,
particularly important for companies navigating the
where people have more information and options
energy transition. Leaders may look to build new,
than before, leaders are well-placed to deeply
lower-carbon businesses while generating most of
understand how their organizations will add
the cash flow and profits from the traditional core.
unique value to customers, colleagues, investors,
A balance may then need to be struck between the
partners, and other key stakeholders. While
past and the future in a way that is coherent and
generating financial returns for shareholders
inspiring for employees in all parts of the business.
remains critical, the purpose of an organization now
On maintaining this balance, one executive reflected:
extends to the role it plays in benefiting society.
“We originally got this wrong and over-indexed on the
newer businesses when describing our purpose. This
The energy sector is becoming keenly aware of this
led to many in the traditional heart of our company
need to widen the scope of value-add. The CEO of a
questioning their role and even reconsidering their
downstream company emphasized what this means
future with us. We quickly had to rebalance and
for leadership: “In the past, the oil and gas industry
find a more sophisticated narrative: celebrating
has been made up of engineers and accountants. In
our role in supplying secure and reliable energy to
today’s world, we need to include communicators in
the world, while leading the charge to make sure
our leadership to help us find an emotional attachment
this was ever cleaner through decarbonization
to what we do. Their involvement will help demonstrate
and building new-energy businesses.”
how using practical solutions to do things more
sustainably can be exciting and inspiring.” The CEO
Nonetheless, few companies harness purpose
of a European private energy company echoed this
fully. In a McKinsey survey of employees at US
sentiment, saying: “There is a huge opportunity
companies, 82 percent said organizational purpose
ahead to have unbelievable impact. It’s the kind of
is important, but only half that number said their
opportunity that only arises once in a generation. We
purpose drives impact. Leaders may wish to spend
can change our country, we can change our region,
time thinking about, articulating, and championing
we can contribute to global change. Realizing this
their company’s purpose as it relates to the real
opportunity will be monumental, and stepping away
impact of day-to-day business practices. One
is unthinkable. This is what is inspiring us now.”
CEO put it this way: “We need to transform and
unite our leadership. Leadership transformation
Top-performing organizations know that purpose
will help us position our company and its culture
is both a differentiating factor and a must-have.
to meet the new challenges. A united leadership
A strongly held sense of corporate purpose is a
is important to give our people and stakeholders
company’s unique affirmation of its identity and
a consistent message about the kind of place we
embodies what the organization stands for, from a
want our company to be.” This emphasizes the
historical, emotional, social, and practical point of view.
importance of an inspiring company identity beyond
Future-ready companies recognize that purpose helps
the attachment to functions and business units.

2. Redesigning value creation: An executive in an energy service company
emphasized the profound challenges they face,
Beyond rivalry to camaraderie and the need for new and often uncomfortable
thinking and action: “We are moving away from stable
Leaders seeking to succeed in the new energy
businesses that we are familiar with to ones we don’t
environment may look at moving beyond a win–win,
understand. This is uncomfortable. In ten years, we
“fixed mindset” approach, where the dominant
will look back and say we did not take enough risks.”
focus is on protecting market share and beating
Another executive said: “We instinctively play defense
competitors in existing businesses. Instead, they
instead of offense, because we believe we have so
could make greater strides by adopting a win–win,
much to lose. I don’t have a fear of losing, but I do have
“growth mindset” approach, by shifting focus to
a fear of not showing up for the game. We need to take
new value opportunities—working with suppliers,
more swings, which will then help us get more hits.”
customers, and other stakeholders to introduce
new technologies and solutions that will lead to new
While leaders may be required to take risks and try
products, services, and businesses—and creating
new approaches, they are well-placed to do this
major new markets that do not exist today.
while being conscious of the resources used and with
capital discipline. In most organizations, the “old” is
Such a shift in focus may require changes to capital
subsidizing the “new,” which needs to be managed.
allocation, operations, and performance management.
One CEO from our research stressed the challenges
Moreover, some changes may be contingent on
of managing this duality: “Both the old and the new
actions by other entities. For example, mass uptake of
need to be included in the energy transition. There
electric vehicles depends on utilities expanding grid
is nothing sustainable about not making money.”
capacity to support charging networks. Companies
He also said he needs to be increasingly clinical
may find they need to partner with other organizations
about “stopping some projects that don’t work” to
to meet common needs, such as the necessity for
create space for those that show more potential.
industrial-scale networks in hydrogen production
and distribution. Leaders may have to engage and
Further, there is the need for new forms of ownership
work with a wide range of external partners and
and governance. In this context, one CEO commented:
stakeholders to enhance and evolve the ecosystem
“It is very easy to lose investors if you say, ‘Don’t worry,
within which the organization operates, exploring and
we will lose money on this for the next ten years.’ But
generating mutually beneficial opportunities. They
to succeed now, you need to find the oxygen and
could benefit from developing connected thinking:
the space to develop the new and the uncertain.”
joining traditionally separate sectors; fostering
new links between companies, organizations,
and citizens; and taking calculated risks.32
32 Roland Theuws, “Energy transition: Strategies and insights from the C-suite,” Amrop, 2018.

3. Organizing how people work: leadership structure on its head. The people doing
the work are key, and everyone else supports
Beyond command to collaboration them. Servant leadership, role-modeling, and
listening to the people who understand how the
To survive and thrive, energy organizations and
work gets done are all part of this new approach.”
their leaders are well-placed to engage with their
teams in ways that make them feel connected. Social
Leading this empowered network requires high-
capital—the presence of networks, relationships,
performing leaders who offer effective and
shared norms, and trust among individuals, teams, and
efficient leadership, beyond the management
business leaders—is increasingly the glue that holds
of internal politics inherent in a hierarchy of
organizations together.33 When teams feel connected,
individual managers and traditional governance
they tend to get more work done and do it faster. When
groups. It requires fundamental shifts in the
colleagues trust their managers and one another, they
mission, culture, and operating models of every
are more engaged, more willing to go beyond minimum
leader and leadership team in the network.
work requirements, and more likely to stick around.
This new leadership style is often challenging.
Social capital matters to an organization’s
One head of production at an international energy
performance. By leaving frontline employees on the
company said: “My biggest change was giving up
sidelines, companies miss out on critical information
control and delegating. It wasn’t easy, but that’s
that could bring key strategic insights. An executive
exactly the change that was needed. Instead of
at a private oil and gas company noted how they are
asking teams for updates and reports, leaders
attempting to tap into their employee base: “Disruptive
now focus on giving context, setting the mission,
trends may start at the margins of an organization,
and defining the purpose and intent. Leaders ask,
where frontline employees operate. These employees’
‘How can I help?’ when engaging with teams, and
perspectives and ideas often do not get clearly
focus on tackling problems. Teams are empowered
communicated to leadership, making it easy to
to figure out how to deliver the mission within the
brush them off, thinking they are not important.”
boundaries defined by standard processes.”
Leaders could engage and unleash the full potential
To amplify and realize the full potential of everyone
of everyone in the organization by empowering
in the system, leaders could foster peer-to-peer
people in small units (cross-network teams) instead
transparency, relationships, and workflow across
of managing individuals through the narrow lens
the various “small units.” This can be done by
of rigid job descriptions. Small units might then be
removing roadblocks that prevent empowered
focused on a clear and distinct value-contribution
teams from bringing ideas to reality, fostering
mission, giving them the autonomy, access to
connections across the organization, helping
information, guidance, training, and multidisciplinary
people to connect what they’re working on with the
capabilities they need to operate with high levels
organization’s vision and aspiration, and encouraging
of entrepreneurship to successfully deliver on their
an inclusive and welcoming environment where
goals. One oil and gas executive described this
people bring their authentic selves to the office
evolved leadership as “turning the whole pyramid
and pursue the full range of their aspirations.
33 Talor Lauricella, John Parsons, Bill Schaninger, and Brooke Weddle, “Network effects: How to rebuild social capital and improve corporate
performance,” McKinsey, August 2, 2022.

4. Getting the work done: What this means for leadership in the new energy
world is captured by the director of strategy at an
Beyond control to evolution offshore driller, who said: “In an industry where
it is becoming increasingly challenging to raise
Energy companies operate in a highly dynamic,
capital, a sharp external focus and agile thinking
unknown, and volatile environment, where major
can create opportunities.” The CEO of a traditional
“black swan” opportunities and challenges are
oil and gas service company summed up what
emerging with increasing frequency. As energy
many executives said: “We need to become
markets and related policies find a new equilibrium,
entrepreneurial and nonbureaucratic. Being slow
organizations must keep an eye on the horizon to plan
and considered may be important in large, traditional
robustly for the uncertain future, while maintaining
engineering projects, but this approach doesn’t
business continuity on their core value proposition.
work in the new energy space. Right now, we love
Hence, in addition to the primary disciplined focus to control and work in silos. This must change.”
on executing today and cocreating tomorrow,
The CEO of an integrated energy company
leaders could build effective “first responder”
emphasized the importance of empowering those
capabilities to tackle major discontinuities within
who work in their organizations: “I want to see us
any business cycle. One senior executive in a
acting more quickly, allowing employees to take
traditional oil and gas company put it this way: “The
decisions at the lowest level possible. We need
old style was slow and steady decision making. But
to empower them to identify and make decisions
when you decided, you carried through with it. This
without having to consult their bosses. It’s OK for
doesn’t work in the energy transition. Instead of
us to make mistakes if we take accountability, fix
slow and flawless execution of large, incremental
them, and learn. It would be much worse if we didn’t
decisions, we need to rapidly learn and evolve.”
make mistakes, which would tell me that we are not
Successful leaders have traditionally managed their taking risks and are playing too safe.” Many of the
organizations through planning and control based leaders we interviewed emphasized the need to
on extensive analysis, while seeking to minimize take risks to succeed in the emerging energy era.
disruptions. Today, leaders could learn to become
For organizations to continually evolve in this
comfortable with operating in shorter, rapid cycles.
emergent way, leaders may need to overcome
This requires increased focus on quick, low-risk
status quo bias—to imagine a world or a market that
decisions and experiments, learning from those
is very different from what it is today. Recognizing
that fail, and scaling those that succeed. Leaders
the inherent challenges in such a transformation,
could begin and end each rapid cycle with a
a leader in a major energy company said: “In
retrospective to review progress, deepen learning,
fairness, it is difficult as a leader to take your
and plan for the next cycle. Each cycle could focus
attention and resources from a business area that is
on a set of short-term outcomes, accomplished via
already highly profitable, to focus on an extremely
prioritized deliverables and initiatives that reflect
uncertain one.” Leaders in the energy sector may
available short-term capacity and appropriately
increasingly need to balance their attention between
manage risk. Outcomes, deliverables, activities,
current activities and future opportunities.
and resources may be reprioritized during each
cycle to reflect rapidly changing realities.

5. Showing up as a leader: One way this leadership manifests itself is in relation to
the demand by today’s employees for more flexibility
Beyond professional to human and autonomy.34 Leaders can facilitate this by allowing
employees a degree of autonomy—empowering
Navigating this uncertainty is an immense challenge
them to do their best work where they feel deeply
that will require best-in-class talent to solve complex
motivated and energized. Another executive in the
problems. As traditional business models are
energy business effectively captures this role for
disrupted, organizations in the energy industry will
leadership using a metaphor: “Think of it as driving
need to ensure they retain their core experienced
on a highway. You can set some limits, like the road
workforce while attracting diversified talent in line
barriers on left and right. But once you set some
with new business needs. The competition for talent
boundaries, you must let others drive. You cannot
is intense and potential employees are looking for
take everyone on the back of a lorry that you are
more than financial compensation. Creating an
driving.” An executive in another global company
attractive destination for top talent means fostering
reinforces this point: “Traditionally, there has been
an inclusive employee experience. This influences
a lot of focus on presence in the office but, since
whether employees remain and thrive, which in
COVID-19, employees demand flexibility. Many senior
turn drives the company’s financial sustainability.
leaders find it hard to make this adjustment, and this
Leaders across all levels have a critical role to play could lead to high performers leaving the company.”
in creating an environment where employees can
bring their full authentic selves to work and feel ―
empowered to pursue a sustainable work–life These five mindset and behavioral shifts could
balance. For this to happen, leaders themselves contribute to a unique and more powerful kind of
need to show up with greater wholeness and leadership. When leaders identify and build the culture
authenticity. One industry executive connected they want the organization to embody, they can create
this with the impact of the pandemic: “In COVID- a virtuous cycle, attracting the right talent that will
19, leaders had to become more authentic—we thrive, unlock their value agenda, and turbocharge
all went through the same war together. This is an their performance.
asset now in terms of the leadership we need.”
Where do we get the entrepreneurs we need now

to lead in the next phase of the energy industry?
34 Dane Fetterer and Holger Reisinger, “Forget flexibility. Your employees want autonomy,” Harvard Business Review, October 29, 2021.

However, the road to transformation is full of bumps facing our world. Meeting these challenges requires
and bends. Such shifts often require changing current the development of the extended characteristics of
systems and ways of operating, which will inevitably leadership we have highlighted here. The good news is
create some organizational resistance. Leaders may that industry leaders are aware of the challenges and
need to brace themselves for complexity and chaos, are consciously starting to address the demands of
while demonstrating deep self-awareness, as they new leadership. This not only requires new talent from
address their own embedded biases and overhaul places outside the traditional energy sector, but also
their own mindsets for the new environment. active transformation of existing leadership.
The transformation can also require organizations One sector CEO summed up the challenges: “Where
to commit to leadership development and a holistic do we get the entrepreneurs we need now to lead in
cultural transformation—broad ideals and small the next phase of the energy industry? You need some
incremental changes may no longer be sufficient. new leaders from outside the industry, in balance
Emerging behaviors and mindsets cannot exist as with those from the existing business. You need the
mere slogans on a wall or in catchy email signatures. new-energy zealots to provide inspiration, but you
They require embodiment on a day-to-day basis, also need leaders to demonstrate that real practical
being continuously role-modeled by senior executives; progress is being made on the ground. We are finding
integration into core business activities and specific that there are many ‘entrepreneurs in residence’—
actions; and demonstration in the moments leaders who are more incremental but who just need
that matter. permission to be entrepreneurs. We need to
activate them!”
These are exciting times for the energy sector, given
its placement at the center of the critical challenges
Anton Derkach is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Houston office, where Ignacio Fantaguzzi is a partner; Neil Pearse is a partner in
the London office; and Micah Smith is a senior partner in the Dallas office.
The authors wish to thank Christopher Handscomb, Johanne Lavoie, Michael Lurie, Hitesh Mewani, and Jack Tabak for their
contributions to this article.
The authors also wish to thank Derek Deasy, a senior affiliate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, for his contributions to
this article.

Transforming an oil
and gas equipment
leader: A case study
How one multinational services and equipment company embarked
on a powerful transformation journey to overcome market challenges
and position itself for a decarbonized future.
By Robert Belanger and Neil Pearse

When a leading oil and gas services and equipment Embraced by the organization: contributing
provider embraced a new vision to become a to one common change story, delivered
champion for decarbonization, it set in motion a through a continuous organizational pulse.
holistic transformation program that would result in
a 20 percent lift in gross income and a 35 percent Inspired by leadership: with leaders acting
increase in EBITDA after just one year.35 as role models for the new behaviors.
The need for drastic change became apparent in Encouraged to take ownership (inside out):
2020 when the company saw sales drop by around 20 taking deep personal ownership of change and
percent due to challenging market dynamics, including engaging in energetic personal transformations.
decarbonization and the COVID-19 pandemic. The
company responded with a strategic shift—leading Given targeted actions (outside in): with
an “Energy Transition”—and sustaining its journey change agents acting as the engine of change,
towards a low-carbon future with a large-scale creating “viral” energy across the organization.
cultural transformation.
Grounded in vital moments: identifying and
The multinational organization, which designs,
targeting moments of truth (MOTs) and driving
manufactures, maintains, and upgrades equipment
participation in action planning and monitoring.
across the entire oil and gas value chain, operates
in more than 120 countries and has around The organization’s change story leveraged
10,000 employees. To realize its new vision, the six from-to shifts that defined the aspirations
organization’s culture had to shift to be more inclusive, of the cultural transformation.
entrepreneurial, transparent, and globally diverse.
1. From a product mindset to a solution mindset.
Starting with a common and Employees needed to learn to think more
inspiring change story like entrepreneurs—not simply making
products function more efficiently, but also
The organization embarked on a deep and sustained rethinking value propositions for customers.
cultural transformation, taking a holistic bottom-
up and top-down approach to shape and deliver a 2. From fear of failure to experimentation. The
compelling change story. The main focus areas were organization needed to reframe failure by shifting
to “aspire” and “assess,” ensuring the leadership team the focus from personal judgment to purposeful
worked together while listening to their employees. learning. To promote an “experiment and learn”
culture, the organization would need to be willing
Focus groups acted as a cornerstone of the program. to shut down projects when they led nowhere,
To develop the full change narrative, 80 employees without negatively judging project teams, and
attended three focus groups each, with the CEO embrace the learnings that come from failure.
and executive committee taking the insights,
refining them, and sharing them back for further 3. From slow, incremental innovation to fast,
input. During these focus groups, people were: iterative innovation. The organization needed
minimum viable products to launch into the
35 EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

marketplace, in order to test them, fail, pivot, Advanced onboarding or renewal. Change
move forward, and change the speed at agents who could no longer devote time to
which it delivered innovation to customers. the transformation were given the chance to
“retire,” with new change agents onboarded in
4. From exclusivity to inclusivity. Success business units that needed additional help.
hinged on diversity of thought; embracing
people from different backgrounds, and
Scaling initiatives: A three-
bringing in new ideas and capabilities.
layered transformation
5. From DIY to partnership. Partnering was
encouraged with the broader organization, The organization partnered with a McKinsey team
with outside partners, and, in some cases, by and promoted change in two directions: “inside-out”
acquiring new capabilities and technologies change, which involved agents choosing to change
to find paths to differentiation. This required their own behavior; and “outside-in” change, where
a shift from a “control and threat” mindset to agents were encouraged to change by external stimuli.
one of partnership as a win–win with partners
and suppliers. It also required a shift from The team led the organization’s transformation across
micromanagement to trust and respect. three layers, with three initiatives implemented in each
layer to achieve maximum impact—operating across
6. From reactive to proactive. The organization the self, team, and broader organization layers.
needed to stop waiting for emergency
signals before implementing change and to The ‘change self’ layer
start leading the way from the get-go.
The inside-out “change self” layer focused on
Change agents were engaged through management and change agents. First, each member
focus groups, taking three key actions: of the organization’s top team was encouraged
to formulate individual “from–to” goals, as part of
Architect action plans. Each business unit’s change their personal transformation. These were explicit,
agent created a detailed action plan, leveraging aspirational plans, based on where they were
the Influence Model—a framework for how to and where they wanted to be, according to
change mindsets and behaviors in an organization. specific indicators.
Plans were defined autonomously in a bottom-up
approach: the central team provided advice and Next, two-day Personal Ownership Workshops
counsel but no instructions on specific actions. were implemented to encourage participants to
reflect deeply on their roles as leaders. More than
Touchpoints to drive action. Regular touchpoint 20 workshops were held, catalyzing transformation
calls were organized in each business unit to through commitment, a shared language, and set of
support the execution of action plans. Plenary calls habits manifesting the organization’s new culture.
allowed change agents to celebrate successes Leadership coaching formed the third initiative in this
and share best practices and lessons learned. layer. One-on-one coaching for the organization’s top
ten executives helped to position them as role models
in the changing organization.

The ‘change team’ layer The vital role of change agents
This outside-in “change team” layer focused on The initial focus group attendees became the
team dynamics. The first activity included team core change agent group. Change agents were
activation sessions, delivered through a series of voluntary and did not have a dedicated time. They
tailored workshops reinforcing team collaboration and had a great deal of autonomy to develop bottom-
openness. These were designed to align managers up action plans and they also provided sensing and
with the overall cultural aspiration in order to support upwards feedback on transformation progress.
them in sharing the change story.
Next, cross-team collaboration workshops Measuring impact: Not

helped to unlock critical collaboration challenges just about performance
between teams, in line with the themes of the
cultural transformation. After two years, around 200 change agents were
active across the network, and after 30 months,
Lastly, leadership capability-building sessions helped
the transformation produced meaningful impact
to stimulate dialogue and organizational learning on
on the organization’s performance and people.
diversity and inclusion.
The ‘change organization’ layer In the first quarter of 2022, the organization
witnessed an increase in sales growth of more
This outside-in “change organization” layer sought than 50 percent from the previous year. In
to foster change among all employees across the the first year after the transformation, gross
organization, through the creation of a powerful income grew more than 20 percent and
change story. This was reinforced by personal MOT EBITDA by 35 percent (2021 versus 2020).
stories, shared by employees. The fusion of personal
MOTs with the organization’s story enabled employees After undergoing the various initiatives, 85
to invest in the change and bring the overall change percent of people in the organization understood
story to life. the “why” of the transformation and more than
75 percent could see the desired new behaviors
Second, a series of focus groups was held to collect in place. More than 90 percent of respondents
input on the change from 150 employees. The focus to a culture survey started making conscious
groups explored organizational challenges and efforts to be proactive; 87 percent took actions
employee suggestions of possible solutions. to be more inclusive; and 62 percent noticed
The last initiative involved change agents—mobilizing behavioral changes in the leaders of their units.
more than 200 change agents to drive change
activities on the ground.

Respondents shared thoughtful insights about the Through a powerful change story, workshops, focus
qualitative impact of the intervention. One said: groups, and a three-layered, bidirectional process of
“This is a great initiative. It gives our organization transformation, the multinational achieved the wide-
the opportunity to reflect on our behaviors and scale participation and ownership needed to achieve
the way we’ve been working for decades.” its vision. The transformation succeeded in growing
sales and income.
Another reflected on the importance of
recognizing growth: “We should all be proud One survey respondent described the importance of
of our progress. It reflects the commitment the program and maintaining focus going forward: “A
and hard work of our leadership, our change vibrant, empowered, contemporary culture enables
agents, and everybody in the organization.” us to tackle business challenges and charge into the
future with confidence and agility. We must keep
up the momentum and focus on entrenching the ‘to’
―
behaviors in everything we do.”
Shaken by challenging market conditions, the
organization embarked on a broad intervention to
align its culture with its vision to become a leader
in decarbonization.
Robert Belanger is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Houston office and Neil Pearse is a partner in the London office.
The authors wish to thank Giulio Carbone and Mike Carson for their contributions to this article.

M&A
Success in the M&A

rebound: Riding
the coming wave of
upstream deals
Historically high cash generation across the North American
upstream industry could create the perfect market conditions for
accelerated M&A activity for market leaders.
By Robert Belanger, Jeremy Brown, and Tom Grace
Published on McKinsey.com, February 24, 2023.

The oil and gas industry has a long and storied history discipline and prioritize financial resiliency and
of M&A transactions and strategic dealmaking. cash flow generation above growth.37 When
Inorganic investment decisions have shaped the prices surged in 2022, upstream companies
portfolios of industry players and determined the maintained their strategy of “no-to-low” capital
ultimate success and long-term growth trajectories of growth. This focus on capital discipline and cash
these companies. With the industry on the precipice of generation has resulted in record cash flows.
historically high cash flows, we expect another wave of
M&A to dominate near-term actions. We examined historical cash flows and projected
operational and financial performance for
This article explores the cash flow landscape and 25 leading North American exploration and
major cash flow deployment levers and shows how the production companies (E&Ps), and the results are
stage has been set for an upstream M&A wave. We impressive: operating free cash flows (FCF) reached
introduce the M&A strategies driving consolidation approximately $85 billion in 2022, with a year-end
and what it takes to succeed in the coming M&A wave. cash balance of $70 billion to $100 billion (Exhibit
15).38 This industry turnaround is dramatic, given
Cash flow is king negative cash generation the previous three years.
Free cash flows are projected to remain high, with
Long gone are the days of “growth at all costs” with
levels of between $70 billion and $90 billion in
expanding capital budgets, acreage acquisition
2023 and between $50 billion and $70 billion for
campaigns, and associated negative cash flow
the following four years—even if oil prices drop to
realizations funded by inexpensive debt.36 Over
around $65 to $70 per barrel over the coming years.
the past few years, investor sentiment has
driven the oil and gas industry to practice capital
The primary tool left in the corporate finance

tool kit is deployment of cash through M&A.
36 Jeremy Brown, Florian Christ, Tom Grace, and Sehrish Saud, “Paths to profitability in the US unconventionals,” McKinsey, August 12, 2019.
37 Jeremy Brown, Florian Christ, and Tom Grace, “Value over volume: Shale development in the era of cash,” McKinsey, October 4, 2019.
38 Includes projected range for the fourth quarter of 2022; published before public reporting for the fourth quarter of 2022.

Exhibit 15
High
High oil
oil prices
pricesand
andcapital
capitaldiscipline
disciplinedrive
driveimpressive oil oil
impressive andand
gasgas
cashcash
flows for for
flows
the foreseeable future.
the foreseeable future.
Operating free cash flow,¹ Historic operating FCF Potential FCF forecast at current WTI futures¹
$ billion
High oil prices have driven free cash flow to its highest historic levels
100
50
83 70–90
50–70 50–70 50–70 50–70
0
–4
–47
–86
–50
–100
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027
Average realized oil price,

$ per barrel with hedge Historic oil prices Potential oil prices forecast at NYMEX strip
90
80 Strong cash generation expected even if
prices return to ~$60 per barrel in the long term
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027
1
Cash flow analysis of 25 North American independent E&Ps. Forecasted cash flow assuming current trends in production, operating expenditure, capital
expenditure, debt repayments, share repurchases, dividends, and other cash expenses for 25 companies analyzed.
McKinsey & Company

Making all the right moves . . . • Shareholder returns. With debt burdens reduced,
direct returns are expected to be the priority.
until there’s only one option left Share buybacks tripled from 2021 to 2022,
reaching a high of $21 billion for 25 leading
Operators are taking advantage of their high cash
independents and representing approximately 5
flows by pulling all the traditional levers of capital
percent of total outstanding shares.41 Likewise,
management, shoring up their balance sheets,
dividends doubled over this period to reach an
and returning value to shareholders (Exhibit 16).
all-time high of $23 billion, and are expected to
However, there is so much cash coming in that many
climb to between $30 billion and $40 billion over
of these levers are hitting a natural cap or are already
the next year. However, direct returns will likely
exhausted. We analyzed how these companies are
also have a natural ceiling in the range of 25 to
using operating cash flow across key levers, including:
30 percent of total sector operating cash flow.42
• Capital expenditure (capex) reinvestment.
• Energy transition. Many operators are investing
E&Ps across the sector have explicitly
to reduce their Scope 1 & 2 emissions or
announced their intention to maintain capital
make early moves to participate in energy-
discipline going forward, only increasing in
transition value chains. However, we expect
line with inflation, even if prices remain high.39
a ceiling of 5 percent of operating cash
If this trend continues, capex will likely be
flow to be allocated to these efforts.43
constrained to current guidance issued by
these companies, indicating a cap on future
Even after these uses of cash have been exhausted,
cash flow allocation for this purpose.
the industry is likely to remain cash flow positive in
2023 and beyond, with a “war chest” of hundreds
• Debt reduction. Debt load for the 25 E&Ps
of billions of dollars in 2023 alone for the 25 North
decreased by $25 billion from 2021 to 2022 and
American E&Ps analyzed, including estimated current
is forecast to decrease by another $15 billion
cash balances. The primary tool left in the corporate
to $20 billion by 2027.40 Forecasted net debt
finance tool kit is deployment of cash through M&A.
for many operators may approach zero—an
outcome unthinkable just a few years ago.
Payments are expected to be capped at expiring
notes only, reaching up to $10 billion in 2023.
39 “EOG Resources reports second quarter 2022 results, declares $1.50 per share special dividend and reiterates unchanged full-year 2022 capital
and oil volume plan,” EOG Resources, August 4, 2022; “Devon Energy reports second-quarter 2022 financial and operational results,” Devon
Energy, August 1, 2022; “Marathon Oil announces 2022 capital budget and reports fourth quarter and full year 2021 results,” Marathon Oil,
February 26, 2022.
41 McKinsey analysis based on industry-wide earning calls and quarterly company reports.
42 McKinsey analysis based on cash flow projections, company announcements, and interviews with E&P leaders.
43 McKinsey analysis based on annual reports and expert interviews.

Exhibit 16
Another wave
Another waveofofupstream
upstreamM&AM&Aisislikely,
likely,with
withM&A
M&Aasasthe
theprimary
primaryremaining
remaininguse
of cash given current strategies.
use of cash given current strategies.
Estimated breakdown of uses of cash for 25 large independents in 2023,¹ $ billion
2022 Cash balance 70–100
Operating cash flow 140–200
2023 Cash available 210–300
Capital expenditure 40–50
Debt reduction 0–10
Shareholder returns 30–40
Energy transition 0–10
M&A war chest 100–230
1
Based on cash flow modeling of 25 large independents; assumes constant production and product mix, operating expenditures, price per barrel, and general
and administrative expenses.
McKinsey & Company
Who’s coming to dinner? upstream sector in 2022 generated relatively low

upstream transaction value compared to previous
The oil and gas industry is, in many ways, the epitome years, due to a range of factors in the upstream
of competition and free market capitalism. A common sector, such as high oil prices and macroeconomic
refrain from industry veterans discussing M&A is, “You factors impacting all sectors, including geopolitical
are either at the table, or you’re on it.” This is a harsh instability, inflation, and the possibility of recession
reality, but companies with strong M&A capabilities (Exhibit 17). However, our analysis of the fundamentals
and bold strategies often exit the cycle fully fed indicates that a new M&A wave is coming.
and healthy. Dealmaking in the North American

Exhibit 17
Dealmaking
Dealmakinginin2022
2022generated
generatedrelatively low upstream
relatively transaction
low upstream value value
transaction
compared
comparedtotoprevious
previousyears.
years.
Upstream transaction value generated in North America by deals of more than $1 billion, $ billion
75
64
48 45
38
29 30
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Number of deals 14 11 17 9 6 10 14
McKinsey & Company
Industry trends suggest that multiple M&A strategies ―

are driving this next wave of consolidation activity.
The oil and gas industry is entering a period of
Basin consolidators (such as Colgate and Centennial)
unprecedented uncertainty characterized by the
will likely look to add scale and leverage operational
energy transition, evolving investor sentiment, and
advantages to achieve outsized returns. Integrators
mounting concerns around energy security. While our
(like EQT with the acquisition of Tug Hill) may seek
industry should be proud of recent performance, now
to add assets in adjacent portions of the value chain
is not the time to bask in the glow of success. As in the
to expand margins and increase resiliency. The bold
past, successful industry players will work tirelessly
(for instance, BP and the acquisition of Archaea) will
to define and deliver a strategy rooted in sound
probably use a portion of their cash stockpiles to seed
M&A investments—honing their evaluation skills and
businesses to reshape their portfolios and position for
integration capabilities—to accelerate their future
the energy transition. Overall, consolidators (eaters
growth and performance.
at the table) will likely be those that have pulled the
operational levers to have better cash flows than their The next article in this series will discuss what it takes
geographically proximate competitors. to succeed. Until then, we leave you with one thought:
“Who’s hungry?”
Robert Belanger and Jeremy Brown are consultants in McKinsey’s Houston office, where Tom Grace is a partner.
The authors wish to thank Joaquin Cancino and Luca Sivers for their contributions to this article.

Beyond G&A:
Maximizing synergy
from oil and gas
mergers
In the coming consolidation wave, exploration and production
companies can raise the aspiration on deal synergy and move
beyond G&A.
By Jeremy Brown, Tom Grace, and Steve Miller
Published on McKinsey.com, April 18, 2023.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are a key tool in a synergies typically outperform those based on G&A
company’s value creation toolbox. Despite a highly savings. In addition, the choice to publicly announce
turbulent macroeconomic environment over the past synergy targets can impact the total return to
decade, M&A activity in the oil and gas sector has shareholders (TRS). By making clever decisions,
continued, albeit at lower levels than prior years.44 companies can reap the most from their deals.
Now, a new M&A wave is expected, driven by record
In this article, we explore two steps that upstream
cash flow in the exploration and production (E&P)
companies could take to maximize value from their
sector, among other factors.45
deals and build resiliency ahead of the next cycle.
In this next wave, differentiated value creation will
likely underpin M&A success, and set M&A winners Most deals don’t create value
apart. Many upstream firms view acquisitions as a
“bread-and-butter” activity that they do well. However, Over the past 12 years, there have been roughly
more than 50 percent of deals in the E&P sector don’t 750 upstream deals with a transaction value of
create value for shareholders.46 Many deals are limited at least $100 million.47 Although most deals were
to a focus on reducing general and administrative less than $1 billion in size, deals greater than
(G&A) expenses and ignore any operational synergies $1 billion have contributed the largest portion
that may exist. There is a lost opportunity here for of transaction value since 2016 (Exhibit 18).
firms to raise their synergy aspirations and look
beyond G&A, as M&A deals pursued for operational
The most successful mergers are usually those that

adopt a transformative approach to value capture.
44 Robert Belanger, Jeremy Brown, and Tom Grace, “Success in the M&A rebound: Riding the coming wave of upstream deals,” McKinsey, February
24, 2023.
45 Ibid.
46 McKinsey analysis based on global upstream transactions involving 100 percent ownership stake. Includes only exploration and production
company transactions; excludes oil field service and equipment, drilling, midstream, or downstream transactions. Data from Capital IQ as of
January 2023.
47 Ibid.

Exhibit 18
Although
Although most
mostdeals
dealswere
wereless than
less than$1 billion in size,
$1 billion deals
in size, greater
deals thanthan
greater $1 billion
accounted for the largest portion of transaction value since 2016.
$1 billion accounted for the largest portion of transaction value since 2016.
Global total upstream transaction value by deal size,1 $ billion
Deal size
$10 million to $100 million $1 billion to $10 billion
$100 million to $1 billion >$10 billion
101 104 106
4 94 2 3
4 14
76 27 74 24
4 22 30 2 62
34 11 2
47 22 54 18
57
58
38 39 42
23 25
11
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Number of deals
86 117 12 55 51 64 41
92 76 68 43 32 70 59
18 18 18 14 5 15 18
- 2 1 1 3 2 -
1
Includes global upstream transactions involving 100 percent ownership stake. Includes only exploration and production company transactions; excludes oil field
service and equipment, drilling, midstream, or downstream transactions. Data as of January 2023.
Source: Capital IQ
McKinsey & Company
Taking a closer look, most deals greater than $1 billion

in size haven’t created value—but the best deals have
created outsized returns for their shareholders
(Exhibit 19).48
48 McKinsey’s Merger Integration Practice analyzes value creation through M&A deals across sectors using the metric of excess total return
to shareholders.

Exhibit 19
Establishing a plan for capturing synergies can ensure a deal creates value, which
Establishing a plan for capturing synergies can ensure a deal creates value,
most transactions fail to do.
which most transactions fail to do.
Excess TRS by deal from 2011 to present,1 %
Top quartile of deals

>50% of deals lost value for shareholders created 60% of M&A value²
60
40
20
–20
–40
–60
Upstream acquisitions with value of more than $1 billion, ranked in order of value creation
1
Analysis of excess total returns to shareholders (TRS) post-deal, based on trend versus index. Includes 71 upstream E&P transactions (excludes OFSE,
midstream, other upstream subsectors) worldwide with value of more than $1 billion and 100 percent change in ownership. Calculated as the post-transaction
difference between buyer share-price performance and S&P 500 oil and gas index over a period of 2 years.
2
The top 25 percent of deals created $44 billion of excess returns to shareholders in 2 years, out of net $75 billion created in the data set of $269 billion of
One plus one equals

transactions.
What
Source:could beMcKinsey
Capital IQ; the make-or-break
M&A Insights factor determining
deal success? Multiple components are at play,
three: Maximize value by
such as&predeal
McKinsey Company diligence, asset-performance
uncertainties, outlooks for oil and gas prices, and moving beyond G&A
transaction management.49 But in all cases, the ability
to accrue differentiated value creation is a key factor All too often, upstream deals have limited their
determining merger success and may determine the synergy goals to the low-hanging fruit of G&A
winners in the next cycle. reductions. Our experience shows, however, that
operational synergies are almost always larger than
G&A savings—often by a factor of three or more.
49 Jeremy Brown, Tom Grace, and Zach Kimball, “The dos and don’ts of M&A in shale,” McKinsey, November 2, 2020; Pat Graham, Maximillian
Mahringer, and Andy Thain, “Ten principles for successful oil and gas operator transitions,” McKinsey, January 31, 2020; Global oil supply-and-
demand outlook to 2040, McKinsey, February 26, 2021.

The most successful mergers are usually those While reducing headcount and other expenses
that adopt a transformative approach to value is usually viewed as a necessary evil that often
capture, systematically pursuing synergies across generates negative emotion, developing additional
financial categories and functions, including revenue through operational excellence can drive
operations. Upstream companies can open the energy and excitement and offer teams a point of
aperture across revenue and production, operating pride to rally around. Operational synergies have
costs, and capital efficiency in addition to G&A, the added benefit of being a buffer in case G&A
using the merger as a “moment in time” to catalyze synergies are harder to obtain than expected.
performance improvement across both entities.
Our work has highlighted that successful
Pursuing operational and production synergies with mergers approach operational synergies
rigor equal to (or greater than) G&A cost synergies from three main angles (Exhibit 20).50
also has an important change-management dynamic.
Exhibit 20
Successful
SuccessfulM&A
M&Adrives
drivesoperational
operationalsynergy inin
synergy three levels
three of ambition.
levels of ambition.
Direct operational synergy Best-of-the-best New opportunities

Synergy examples Leverage operating proximity or Combine capabilities and data to Capture the unique moment of
by function size-and-scale, or both, to scale opportunities across the merger to catalyze step
drive efficiencies larger portfolio change in performance
Development Accelerate best inventory across Optimize timing and orientation of Embed fracking-interference
planning combined portfolio stacked-pay development based mitigation into combined
on total program net present development plans with
value (NPV) supporting data collection
Production Combine and optimize well Maximize uptime of wells or Expand digital capabilities in
operations surveillance, workover campaigns, facilities based on combined data surveillance and pilot new
and water management and learnings, including design artificial lift technologies
and vendor
Drilling and Increase equipment and Standardize execution based on Increase piloting of new
completion (D&C) infrastructure sharing across combined data and expertise, techniques, as a smaller share of
more rigs and fracking spreads accelerating spud-to-sales and larger total D&C budget
minimizing cost
Supply chain and Institute integrated contracts with Leverage combined data and Empower and integrate
procurement larger volume and lower unit costs expertise to simplify designs and procurement teams to proactively
build supply chain resiliency combat inflationary pressures
Level of synergy
ambition
McKinsey & Company
50 McKinsey analysis based on synergy planning processes used during recent client work in M&A.

Leading companies often ask the following questions Publicly announce synergy goals
when considering M&A:
To announce, or not to announce, that is the
1. What are the direct operational synergies to be question. Once synergies have been planned and
extracted, either from an overlap (or adjacency in targeted, they can be announced—internally or
footprint) or from an expanded size and scale? externally. At a minimum, targets, or goals, can
2. How can we leverage the best-of-the-best be clearly communicated internally, with discreet
capabilities from each organization, using both goals set for each part of the combined business.
data and capabilities to scale opportunities This mobilizes the entire organization to drive
across portfolios? performance, while offering a clear rationale for
decision makers to anchor the many tough calls that
3. How can new opportunities be catalyzed in this will likely be required during the integration process.
unique moment to realize step changes
in performance? But announcing targets externally can increase the
Firms that strive to become world-class serial chance that deals create value (Exhibit 21). While there
dealmakers may engineer answers to these questions is a negligible link between communicating additional
into a repeatable “deal machine,” which they information about the deal and the initial market
continually improve while proactively strengthening reaction, announcing cost-synergy expectations
the muscle memory of how to run it. may be tied to significant long-term outperformance
over peers. Our analysis of 776 deals across sectors
showed that companies that announced synergy
targets outperformed those that did not by an
incremental 7 percent TRS over a median of two years.
Companies that announced synergy targets

outperformed those that did not by an incremental
7 percent TRS over a median of two years.

Exhibit 21
Deals
Dealsthat
thatannounce
announcesynergies tend
synergies to outperform
tend those
to outperform that don’t.
those that don’t.
Initial market reaction,1;2 Median two-year excess TRS,3

% improvement above peer index % improvement above peer index
Announced Announced
0.7 2.2
synergies synergies
Didn’t Didn’t
announce 0.6 announce –5.3
synergies synergies
1
Excludes nonstrategic deals (for example, acquirer is a real estate investment trust or investment bank). Includes transactions of companies acquired with a
market cap representing 30 to 500 percent of the acquiring company market cap, and a total acquired market cap larger than $500 million, for announced and
completed deals between 2010 and 2019.
2
Median acquirer short-term TRS in excess of industry sector TRS (MSCI) for 2 days predeal versus 2 days post deal. n = 973.
3
Two-year excess TRS involves the median acquirer long-term TRS in excess of industry sector TRS (MSCI) for 1 month predeal versus 2 years post deal. n = 776.
Source: Synergy Lab
McKinsey & Company
Publicly announcing targets can contribute to putting publicly announced targets are typically supported
healthy pressure on the executives and support teams by internal targets that are up to 200 percent
who will have their compensation linked to meeting higher, even in the case of value leakage.51 Public
targets. As the onus is on the company to deliver, this announcements also allow investors to understand
can encourage executive teams to tackle the difficult where the synergies are coming from, instead of the
decisions included in initial synergy estimates instead deal being a black box.
of opting for an easier route. To ensure delivery,
51 McKinsey analysis based on synergy planning processes used during recent client work in M&A.

After the deal, some organizations may be tempted ―
to adjust the synergy goals used in approval to better
In the next wave of upstream M&A, differentiated
match the actual delivery. To counter this behavior,
value creation may be a key factor underpinning
top CEOs may require their teams to place a record
merger success. By pursuing operational synergies
of synergy objectives in a figurative time-locked
beyond G&A and publicly announcing synergy
safe with the initial opening set for the first executive
targets, companies can maximize the value from their
lookback on deal success. There will likely be both
mergers—and accelerate their growth
positive and negative variances against the goal, but
and performance.
only by knowing where gaps exist can teams fine-
tune estimation and delivery methods to
continually improve.
Jeremy Brown is a consultant in McKinsey’s Houston office, where Tom Grace and Steve Miller are partners.
The authors wish to thank Robert Belanger, Joaquin Cancino, and Luca Sivers for their contributions to this article.

The importance of
cultural integration
in M&A: The path to
success
Culture management is a vital aspect of integrations during mergers
and acquisitions and, with the right measures, cultural alignment can
drive vastly improved returns.
By Ignacio Fantaguzzi and Christopher Handscomb

For many companies, successful M&A is a critical Culture can improve M&A success
aspect of their long-term strategy—and a clear
pathway to accelerated growth. In the past decade, Culture—both within the acquiring firm and throughout
M&A accounted for $8.3 trillion of capital deployment the integration planning process for targets—is critical
for the world’s 2,000 largest companies across all to creating value through M&A.54 This is especially true
sectors. M&A is also a large contributor to growth, for cross-border or step-out integrations, for example,
and McKinsey analysis has shown that it can be to gain a foothold in new lower carbon segments.
responsible for driving 75 percent of growth.52 Despite
this, the rate of failure is high, standing at between 70 Differences in the cultures of organizations can
and 90 percent.53 exist at any level and have the potential to seriously
disrupt operations and jeopardize integration
Organizations that acquire successfully have processes. For example, companies may differ in
distinctive capabilities at every stage of the process. their cultures around decision making—one may
Qualities they have embedded at deep institutional have a top-down, directive culture while the other’s
levels include reallocating M&A capital regularly, is consultative and process-driven. Such issues
having clearly defined “go” and “no go” criteria, are especially common where large, established
knowing when to walk away from deals, and the ability energy players are acquiring smaller start-ups.
to focus relentlessly on value creation in integration
planning and execution. A capability that is often Failing to align culture could meaningfully
overlooked, however, is the ability to manage culture inhibit the companies’ prospects of smoothly
throughout the M&A process. integrating and capturing the anticipated
In this article, we explore how culture can be used to value. Similarly, parties in an M&A must align in
drive success during integration and how by managing areas such as accountability, communication,
culture efficiently, companies in the energy sector innovation, and operational management.
could improve costs and revenue following M&As.
Our research shows that companies that manage
culture effectively in their integration planning
are around 50 percent more likely to meet or
exceed their synergy targets—across both
cost and revenue synergies (Exhibit 22).
52 McKinsey analysis; Growth Decomposition database; Activist Investing 2018 Annual Review.”
53 Richard Alton, Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis Rising, and Andrew Waldeck, “The big idea: The new M&A playbook,” Harvard Business Review,
March, 2011.
54 Oliver Engert, Becky Kaetzler, Kameron Kordestani, and Andy MacLean, “Organizational culture in mergers: Addressing the unseen forces,
McKinsey, March 26, 2019.

Exhibit 22
Companies that effectively manage culture during integration planning are more
Companies that effectively manage culture during integration planning are
likely to capture cost and revenue synergies.
more likely to capture cost and revenue synergies.
Reported effectiveness of culture management At or above synergy target² Below synergy target³
by synergy achievement,¹ %
Cost synergies Revenue synergies
Effectively manage culture 75 25 74 26
Ineffectively manage culture 48 52 45 55
1
n = 1,587.
2
At target defined as within 10 percent of synergy target; above target defined as greater than or equal to 110 percent of synergy target.
3
Below target defined as less than or equal to 90 percent of synergy target.
Source: McKinsey analysis of deal database and OHI databases; 2018 McKinsey Global M&A Capabilities Survey
McKinsey & Company
Three steps to improve very different cultural strengths, and aspects of each
culture can be brought in during the transition.
cultural integration
Prioritizing cultural aspirations for the integrated
Evidence from McKinsey’s integration
company by articulating the future culture and
engagements in energy and beyond suggests
tailoring the integration approach to support
that managing culture through the M&A process
these priorities. The cultural program can’t be
successfully could depend on three steps:
viewed as an isolated job—it must be interwoven
with all integration initiatives. And, for the
Diagnosing “how work gets done” by establishing
program to achieve true behavioral change, it
a cultural baseline. Doing this allows for the
must resonate with people on a personal level,
identification of common strengths that can be
requiring rational and emotional intervention
built upon between the organizations, revealing
throughout the change management process.
potential transformation opportunities, as well as
differences that may cause friction. While recognizing
Driving change, with leaders in both companies
differences, it is important not to exaggerate them
developing a ‘change story’ to plot the desired cultural
or think of them as differences between “good” and
transformation and determining a set of targeted
“bad” cultures: companies can succeed equally with
initiatives for building toward the desired culture.

Here, communication must go in both directions suggests that M&A deals that deploy advanced culture
(to both the leaders and employees in the acquirer management strategies far outperform those that do
and target organizations). Alignment among the not. Companies in the energy sector could replicate
top team—as well as role modeling—is crucial for these successes by performing a cultural diagnosis,
success. These new leaders may be called upon to prioritizing cultural aspirations, and driving change
sponsor activities to keep things moving forward. among the leadership in the target organization and
acquirer alike.
―
Lack of attention to culture management can be

a major hurdle to the success of M&As. But by
applying an integration strategy giving due attention
to culture, this need not be the case. Research
Ignacio Fantaguzzi is a partner in McKinsey’s Houston office and Christopher Handscomb is a partner in the London office.

Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees
are their own and do not represent or reflect
the opinions, policies, or positions of McKinsey
& Company or have its endorsement.
This publication is not intended to be used as the basis
for trading in the shares of any company or for undertaking
any other complex or significant financial transaction
without consulting appropriate professional advisers.
No part of this publication may be copied or
redistributed in any form without the prior
written consent of McKinsey & Company.
Cover and all chapter illustrations
by Vanessa Branchi
Published by McKinsey & Company,
3 World Trade Center, 175 Greenwich
Street, New York, New York 10007
Copyright © 2024 McKinsey & Company.
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The State

Five features of operational excellence in oil and gas organizations 18

Transforming an oil and gas equipment leader: A case study 54

Beyond G&A: Maximizing synergy from oil and gas mergers 65

The importance of cultural integration in M&A: The path to success 73

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 2

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 3

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 4

Key questions to consider • At the strategic level (including capital allocation)

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 5

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 6

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 7

New energy businesses:

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 8

The share of electricity in energy composition will continue to grow.

Final energy consumption by fuel, Achieved Commitments scenario, million TJ

McKinsey & Company

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 9

As many energy majors embark on their own new

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 10

Case study: Eni creates an independent renewables business—Plenitude

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 11

1 “The deal on the Lightsource deal,” BP, March 15, 2018.

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 12

2 Capital markets day, EDP, 2023.

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 13

Key choices Integration levels Example businesses

1 Steering model New energy New energy New energy

2 Strategy and New energy New energy New energy

3 Capital allocation New energy New energy New energy

5 Operational New energy New energy Central projects and

McKinsey & Company

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 14

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 15

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 16

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 17

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 18

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 19

% (higher is better) Cost performance index³ (lower is better)

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 20

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 21

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 22

A top quartile peer can deliver 150 percent

12 McKinsey Energy Solutions Organization Benchmark, July, 2023.

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 23

Organization size, normalized for operator activity, %

3Q peers Average BU TQ peers

Source: McKinsey Energy Solutions O&G Organization Benchmark

McKinsey & Company

Measuring productivity hours and financial output, including revenue.14

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 24

The State of Energy Organizations 2024 25

All functions have

Normalized staffing intensity by selected function¹

Subsurface Wells Production operations Maintenance

Avg Avg Avg Avg

Compared to the 25% 40% 25% 30%

30% 2.5× 2× 20%

McKinsey & Company