This workshop aims to bring together operators, service companies, and industry experts to share practical experiences, case studies, and frameworks on how resilience can be systematically built into operations, portfolios, and organizations. The focus is on moving beyond reactive downturn management toward structural resilience in an disrupted oil price environment. The workshop will explore how companies and emerging producing regions can prepare for volatility, protect long-term value, strengthen local capability, and sustain safe, reliable, and cost-efficient performance across uncertain market cycles.

Oil price behavior has shifted from predominantly cyclical downturns to recurrent disruptions driven by structural and geopolitical shocks. Recent market assessments from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and International Energy Agency (IEA) confirm that while the medium-term outlook points to surplus supply and downward price pressure toward 2027, short-term price movements remain highly sensitive to geopolitical conflict, OPEC+ policy shifts, supply-chain fragility, sanctions regimes, and demand uncertainty linked to energy transition dynamics. [eia.gov], [money.usnews.com]

This combination of lower-for-longer price expectations and intermittent price disruptions creates a fundamentally different operating environment for the oil and gas industry. Companies are required not only to manage sustained margin pressure but also to remain agile in responding to abrupt price spikes, supply interruptions, and cost inflation events. Traditional downturn cost-cutting responses alone are no longer sufficient. Hosted in Paramaribo at a pivotal stage in Suriname’s offshore energy development, this workshop will connect global oil price volatility with the practical challenges facing emerging producing regions. Discussions will explore how operators, service companies, government stakeholders, and local suppliers can build resilience before and during major project execution, including supply-chain readiness, workforce capability, capital discipline and long-term value protection across uncertain market cycles.

Industry participants face a dual challenge:

• Structural pressure from oversupply, moderate demand growth, and long- term energy transition effects that suppress price recovery potential toward 2027. [eia.gov]

• Acute disruptions caused by geopolitical instability, sanctions, logistics bottlenecks, and OPEC+ production strategy shifts that periodically destabilize markets and operating plans. [bakerinstitute.org], [forbes.com]

These conditions amplify risks related to:

• Cash flow volatility and forecasting uncertainty

• Capital efficiency and timing of investment decisions

• Project execution delays and contracting exposure

• Supply-chain readiness, vendor capacity, and logistics constraints

• Asset reliability under deferred maintenance or cost pressure

• Workforce capability retention amid repeated cost-reset cycles

Resilience therefore becomes a core strategic capability, not merely a response to downturns.

Building resilience means developing organizations and assets that can absorb shocks, adapt rapidly, and sustain performance across volatile price cycles. Market analyses from IEA and EIA emphasize that future volatility will persist even in oversupplied markets due to geopolitical risk concentration and uneven energy transition pathways. [iea.org], [eia.gov]

Resilience is anchored in:

• Operational excellence as a continuous discipline

• Capital and portfolio flexibility

• Robust asset integrity and reliability management

• Organizational adaptability and learning culture

• U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Short-Term Energy Outlook, February 2026 [eia.gov]

• International Energy Agency (IEA), Oil Market Reports, 2025–2026 [iea.org]

• Reuters, global oil market surplus and geopolitical risk analyses, 2025–2026 [money.usnews.com]

• Baker Institute for Public Policy, Oil Market Outlook 2026: OPEC+, Geopolitics, and Price Risk [bakerinstitute.org]

Operational Excellence Under Disruption
How operators sustain safe, reliable, and cost- efficient operations during sudden oil price shocks and supply-demand imbalances. Focus areas include lifting cost reduction, operating model simplification, and decision-making under volatility.

Organizational and Workforce Resilience
Managing workforce capability through repeated cycles of disruption. Balancing cost efficiency with retention of critical technical knowledge and leadership required for rapid recovery.

Capital Discipline and Flexibility
Strategies to navigate investment decisions when price signals are distorted by volatility and disruption. Emphasis on phased developments, short-cycle opportunities, and deferral risk management in capital-intensive projects.

Asset Resilience and Integrity
Maximizing value from existing assets through reliability-centered maintenance, integrity management, and selective digitalization to withstand periods of both cost pressure and operational stress.

Supply Chain, Contracting, and Execution Resilience
Approaches to managing procurement risk, logistics constraints, vendor capacity, contract flexibility, cost escalation, and execution delays during periods of price volatility and market disruption. This focus area is especially relevant for emerging offshore regions where project execution depends on a resilient ecosystem of global contractors, local suppliers, and service companies.

Learning From Disruptions to Prepare for the Next Shock
Applying lessons learned from recent price disruptions and geopolitical crises to build organizations that respond faster, recover stronger, and reduce long-term value erosion.

The workshop aims to generate practical takeaways that participants can apply to assets, projects, organizations, and emerging producing regions facing volatile price environments. Expected outcomes include:

• Resilience frameworks for operations, portfolios, and organizations

• Case-study lessons from operators and service companies

• Practical approaches to capital discipline and project flexibility

• Strategies for supply-chain and contracting resilience

• Operational practices to protect value during disruption

• Lessons learned to improve preparedness for future oil price shocks