Steve Mackie

PhD student - EngMgt

Biography

Steve has over 25 years experience in the upstream petroleum industry functioning in both regional and field specific geoscience. As well as running his own successful consultancy he has worked for multinationals and local explorers. He has been forming, managing and developing asset teams associated with exploration and development geoscience for the last 15 years and recently set up and successfully managed Santos' first virtual team. He is currently the Exploration and Business Development Manager of Magellan Petroleum Australia Ltd. Steve has an MBA from the University of South Australia and a B.Sc. (Sedimentology and Geophysics) from Macquarie University.

Research Project

Human Decision-Making Under Uncertainty in the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry

Supervisors: Prof Steve Begg, Dr Chris Smith & Dr Matthew Welsh

Project support: BHP Billiton and Santos

Scholarship support: Australian Postgraduate Award, ARC Research Grant

Project Description

Business under-performance in the upstream oil and gas industry, and the failure of many decisions to return expected results, has led to a growing interest over the past few years in understanding the impacts of current decision-making tools and processes and their relationship with decision outcomes. Improving oil and gas decision-making is thus, increasingly, seen as reliant on an understanding of what types of decisions are involved and how they actually are made in the "real world".

There has been significant work carried out within the discipline of cognitive psychology, observing how people actually make decisions. However, little is known as to whether these general observations apply to decision-making in the upstream oil and gas industry. Nor has there been work on how the results might be used to improve decision-making in the industry.

This research is a step towards filling this gap by developing two themes - decision-making process and decision type. It documents a "real world" oil and gas decision-making model together with a theoretical decision-making model. Comparing and contrasting the two models yields several prescriptions for improved decision-making in the upstream oil and gas industry.

This research also documents the development of an oil and gas decision-making taxonomy that lays a decision space within which to judge the processes of decision-making. The taxonomy builds on established ideas in the human decision-making literature, but is itself novel, and involves four different dimensions: complexity; task constraint; value functions; and the structure of the information environment.

A primary observation is that decision-making processes are tailored to the various types of decisions. It is argued that maximising the chances of a good outcome in "real world" decisions requires the implementation of such tailoring.

The project supports the "Transforming Existing Industries" goal of the "Environmentally Sustainable Australia" Research Priority area, through improved decision-making around the risks associated with resource extraction and by making decisions that will optimise the benefit to Australia.

Publications

Mackie, S.I., Begg, S.H., Smith, C.S., and Welsh, M.E., 2007, Decision Type: A Key to Realizing the Potential of Decision-Making Under Uncertainty, AAPEA Journal, Volume 22, Number 1, pp 307 - 317.

Mackie, S.I., Welsh, M.B. and Lee, M.D., 2006, An Oil and Gas Decision-Making Taxonomy, SPE paper 100699.

Mackie, S.I. (2002), 2001 Exploration Review, APPEA Journal Vol 42 Part 2, p71-81

Lowe-Young, B.S., Mackie, S.I., and Heath, R.S. (1998), The Cooper-Eromanga Petroleum System, Australia. Investigation of Essential Elements and Processes, AAPG Bulletin, Vol 82, No. 13 (Supplement)

Mackie, S.I. (1998), Integrated Team Work - A Case Study. PESA (Qld) Symposium

Mackie, S.I., Lowe-Young, B.S., and Heath, R.S. (1996), Geological Controls on Hydrocarbon Accumulations in the Eromanga Basin, South West Queensland - A Petroleum System Perspective, GSA Abstract No 43

Mackie, S.I. and Gumley, C.M., (1996), The Dirkala South Oil Discovery: Focusing on Cost-Efficient 3-D Seismic Reservoir Delineation, Cooper/Eromanga Basin, Central Australia, Chapter 8 in Applications of 3-D Seismic Data to Exploration and Production, AAPG Studies in Geology #42 and SEG Geophysical Developments Series #5, Paul Weimer and Thomas L. Davis (eds)

Mackie, S.I. and Gumley, C.M. (1995), The Dirkala South Oil Discovery: Focusing on Cost-Efficient Reservoir Delineation, APPEA Journal Vol 35 Part 1, p65-78.

Mackie, S.I., Grasso, C.A. and McGuire, S.R. (1995), Reservoir Characterization of the Toolachee Unit "C" in the Moomba/Big Lake Area: Focusing on Minimizing Risk, APPEA Journal Vol 35 Part 1, p95-105.

Mackie, S.I.(1987), Cooper/Eromanga Basins Hydrocarbon Potential, Oil and Gas Journal, Nov 9, 1987