Oil and gas basics for people selling into it

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You sell software, services, equipment or expertise, and oil and gas has become a market you want. You have the product. What you do not have is the map: who operates what, who actually signs, when the money moves, and what the words mean. The hosts of this show hear the same question from the same kind of company every month, and spent a whole episode answering one such letter.

Source: Breaking into Oil and Gas, a Five Step Process, episode 100 of the Oil & Gas Sales & Marketing Podcast.

Seven short pages, in any order. Each one introduces the words a buyer uses, shows the structure behind them in a picture, lets the show say what that structure does to a deal, and ends on one question you can answer before your next call. Where a number did not come from an episode, it came from public data and the source is linked under it.

Already in the industry and new to the job? You want the course instead; it assumes everything on these pages.

1. Basics 1 · 4 min · read95 percentof US wells are operated by independent producersOperators, service companies and everyone elseAsk who the company sells to before you ask what they buy.
2. Basics 2 · 3 min · read17business units at Chevron, each with its own president and budgetSupermajors and independentsThe logo everyone wants is the deal the show tells you not to chase first.
3. Basics 3 · 3 min · read$93.17 to $43.29WTI's annual average from 2014 to 2016The price cycleOil at $100 is a harder market to sell into than oil at $50, and the show says why.
4. Basics 4 · 3 min · readFebruarywhen approved money actually reaches the bankThe budget yearA request that misses October waits twelve months, and the money that is approved in January does not arrive until February.
5. Basics 5 · 3 min · read$5 millionumbrella policy the show's own company carriesPrequalification, insurance and the MSAThey will not take the meeting until a system they do not run says you are safe to have on site.
6. Basics 6 · 3 min · readNine out of 10engineered equipment decisions the show puts with the engineerWho actually buysThe engineer who loves your product cannot sign for it, and the person who can has never heard of you.
7. Basics 7 · 3 min · read5 or 7business days to respond: the show's sign you are making the countThree kinds of RFPAn RFP that arrives from a stranger with a week to respond is usually not an invitation.

Start with who is who → Just need a word? The glossary