Oil & Energy Director EA FAQs — Why do 200 IT Projects ≠ Oil & Energy Enterprise Architecture?
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- Dec 10, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 30, 2025
Most oil & energy organisations still treat Enterprise Architecture as an IT exercise, which is why EA efforts don’t change production stability, reserve recovery, asset utilisation, safety outcomes, regulatory compliance, or margin predictability.
Oil & Energy EA ≠ Oil & Energy IT.
This Director EA FAQ explains where traditional EA breaks down and how a true enterprise anatomy reveals the structure that IT alone cannot see, align, or repair.
It explains the logic of shadow anatomies, 12 energy use cases, and the One Energy One Anatomy™ advantage.
Q1: Why do 190 IT projects ≠ Oil & Energy Enterprise Architecture?
Myth:
Oil & Energy EA = ERP + SCADA + EAM + GIS + digital oilfield platforms.
Reality:
An oil & energy enterprise operates through 15 departments (D1–D15) such as Exploration, Reservoir Engineering, Drilling, Production Operations, Maintenance, HSE, Supply Chain, Logistics, Trading, Scheduling, Finance, Compliance, Asset Management, and Operations Planning — each with its own P1–P6 execution cycle.
Energy IT is only one department.
EA (IT) ≠ Enterprise Anatomy.
A project inventory cannot show how reservoir strategy, production logic, safety rules, maintenance policies, supply constraints, and trading decisions align across the enterprise.
Q2. Why do so many IT projects fail to represent the oil & energy enterprise?
Because oil & energy IT automates only small fragments of P5 tasks, while the true operating architecture of the energy enterprise lives in P1–P4, not in the task layer.
Every energy department operates on a full P1–P6 structure:
P1 (Strategy) defines reserve development strategy, production targets, risk posture, and investment priorities.
P2 (Processes) defines exploration, drilling, production, maintenance, transportation, trading, and compliance workflows.
P3 (System logic) defines reservoir models, production rules, safety thresholds, maintenance triggers, scheduling constraints, and exception handling.
P4 (Component Spec) defines well designs, production models, maintenance plans, safety procedures, contracts, and datasets.
This is the architecture (P1- P4) of the oil & energy enterprise.
Most IT projects touch P5 only — automating selected tasks such as -data capture, -work-order execution, -monitoring dashboards, -reporting, or -settlement — while P1–P4 remains fragmented, manual, or interpreted differently across assets and locations.
The mismatch is structural:
IT systems automate tasks. Oil & energy operations run on physical, safety, and economic architecture.
Because P1–P4 was never architected:
• production decisions vary across fields • safety thresholds are interpreted inconsistently • maintenance logic differs across assets • scheduling conflicts emerge between operations and trading • reserve and production assumptions diverge • compliance logic fragments across regions
Energy IT does not fail because systems are weak. It fails because it is built on an incomplete representation of the enterprise.
Q3. What drives the high project count in the oil & energy industry?
Oil & energy is a rule-dense, asset-heavy enterprise where every change cascades across functions.
A reservoir model update affects drilling plans, production profiles, and investment decisions.
A safety regulation change impacts procedures, training, reporting, and audits.
An asset failure alters maintenance schedules, production forecasts, and supply commitments.
A market or price shift affects trading strategy, scheduling, and logistics.
An energy transition initiative introduces new assets, processes, and compliance logic.
High project count reflects asset, safety, and market complexity, not IT inefficiency.
Q4. What is unique about Oil & Energy’s 15 Functions (D1–D15)?
Each energy organisation has a distinctive 15-function anatomy (D1–D15 × P1–P6).
Energy highlights:
D1 Exploration – governs geological and reservoir decisions D3 Drilling – governs well planning and execution logic D5 Production Operations – governs output, constraints, and optimisation D7 Maintenance & Reliability – governs asset availability and risk D9 HSE – governs safety, environmental, and compliance rules D11 Trading & Scheduling – governs market exposure and delivery logic D13 Asset Management – governs lifecycle and capital decisions
These functions generate the strongest P1–P6 drift when not aligned.
Shadow anatomies emerge when assets and regions evolve independently.
Q5. What does P1–P6 look like in the oil & energy industry?
This explains how strategy (P1) → operations (P6) breaks down.
P1 Strategy: reserve development, production targets, risk and investment decisions.
P2 Process: exploration, drilling, production, maintenance, transport, trading.
P3 Logic: reservoir models, safety thresholds, maintenance triggers, scheduling rules.
P4 Components: well designs, production models, maintenance plans, contracts, datasets.
P5 Implementation: IT workflows, monitoring systems, work orders, reports.
P6 Operations: field teams applying rules differently across assets.
Energy drift occurs when these layers no longer form one integrated sequence.
Q6. We already have extensive architecture documentation. Why redo this?
Myth:
More documentation means we understand the enterprise.
Reality:
Documentation shows parts of the energy organisation. Enterprise Anatomy shows the organisation as one integrated model.
Think of the human body.
It has 11 organ systems. Each has its own role, but none operate independently. They function as one integrated system with thousands of interdependencies.
An oil & energy enterprise is the same. An energy anatomy = 15 Functions (D1–D15) × 6 Perspectives (P1–P6).
Traditional documentation describes systems, assets, procedures, and reports separately — but never shows: • how reservoir strategy drives production behaviour • how safety logic impacts output • how maintenance rules affect revenue • how trading decisions conflict with operations • where structural risk accumulates
You get a library — not a model.
One Energy One Anatomy™ collapses complexity into one integrated enterprise model.
Q7. How do we evolve from EA (IT) → EA (Departments) → One Energy One Anatomy™?
Most organisations stop at EA = IT architecture.
The next evolution is:
Step 1: Elevate EA (IT)Create the P1–P4 model of Energy IT itself — IT strategy, IT processes, IT logic, IT components.
Step 2: Create EA (Departments)Map 15 energy functions end-to-end (P1–P6).
Step 3: Create One Energy One Anatomy™Unify all departmental models into one enterprise anatomy governing assets, safety, production, trading, and compliance.
This is where drift stops — and operational stability returns.
Q8. What can One Energy One Anatomy™ do that traditional EA cannot?
Traditional EA focuses on systems, interfaces, and documentation. It cannot see that every department in an oil & energy enterprise operates its own shadow anatomy.
In reality:
• Exploration runs one version of reservoir logic
• Drilling runs another interpretation of execution constraints
• Production operates on local optimisation rules
• Maintenance applies asset-specific reliability logic
• HSE enforces safety rules differently by site
• Trading and scheduling optimise against market logic
• Finance models costs and margins using different assumptions
Each department carries its own P1–P6 interpretation of how the enterprise works.
Across assets, regions, and functions, this results in hundreds of shadow anatomies:
• different production assumptions per field • different safety thresholds per site • different maintenance triggers per asset • different scheduling priorities per operation • different compliance interpretations per regulator • different cost and margin logic across finance and operations
Traditional EA documents this fragmentation. It does not remove it.
One Energy One Anatomy™ replaces hundreds of shadow anatomies with one enterprise anatomy.
It establishes:
• one shared P1 strategy across assets • one consistent P2 process model for exploration, drilling, production, and trading • one P3 logic layer for safety, production, maintenance, and scheduling rules • one P4 definition of core components, datasets, and decision structures • aligned P5 execution • predictable P6 operations
This allows the enterprise to address enterprise-wide failuresand department-specific issues using the same underlying model.
Instead of fixing problems asset by asset, system by system, or department by department, the organisation corrects the root anatomical structure once.
That is something traditional EA cannot do — because it never models the enterprise as one integrated operating anatomy.
How it Impacts the 12 Core Oil & Energy Use Cases
Using One Energy One Anatomy™, the enterprise can address failures across:
Reserve Development Planning
Drilling & Well Execution
Production Optimisation
Asset Maintenance & Reliability
HSE & Safety Compliance
Production Scheduling
Logistics & Transportation
Trading & Market Alignment
Cost & Margin Control
Regulatory Compliance
Asset Lifecycle Management
Operational Performance Stability
With One Energy One Anatomy™, these use cases become predictable and controllable — because they run on one enterprise logic stack.
