Energy & Infrastructure Advisory · UK · Middle East · Africa · Since 2005
Oclas is an energy and infrastructure advisory practice. I work with operators, developers, investors and public bodies on the gap between what an asset is meant to deliver and what it actually does. Specialist depth, senior attention, and advice that survives contact with reality.
A fixed-scope diagnostic of why an asset or business is not delivering what the plan assumed. Process, data, decision rights and governance, mapped against the value they are costing you. Delivered in four to six weeks with a costed improvement roadmap.
Fixed fee · defined scope
Retained senior counsel through operational change: target operating model, maintenance strategy, management of change, root cause analysis and the KPIs that make improvement stick. Including turnaround and shutdown readiness, where stakeholder alignment decides the outcome before the plant comes down.
Monthly retainer
For investors pricing an asset or a portfolio: an operator's read on whether the business case survives contact with how the asset is actually run. Maintenance backlog, data quality, organisational capability and the realistic cost of closing the gap.
Fixed fee · defined scope
Mid-sized developers in renewables, storage and grid infrastructure who need senior capability without the overhead of a permanent team.
Infrastructure funds and investors who want an operator's read on the assets they are pricing, from someone who has sat inside projects like them.
Government departments and public agencies delivering the clean energy agenda, supported through frameworks and direct engagement.
Energy operators, supermajors and the consultancies that serve them, supported on operational performance, process transformation and programme delivery. Past clients include Shell, Chevron and BP.
Oil & Gas · Collaborative Working · Africa, Kazakhstan, Netherlands
Led the process implementation team on Shell's Collaborative Working Environment programme, carrying an estimated annual benefit of over US$75m in production efficiency. Well restart times fell from six days to under three, and travel to the field reduced by 15%.
Oil & Gas · Digital & Remote Operations · International
Led the business process workstream of a remote-operations study for a major offshore gas facility, mapping every manual intervention on the platform and designing the operating model and maintenance strategy to run it with few or no people on board. Around 80% of maintenance hours were corrective; the roadmap shifted that towards predictive and preventive.
Refining & Petrochemicals · Operational Excellence · UK
Led the business process workstream of a transformation programme: management of change, root cause analysis, KPIs and loss capture, turning repetitive operational losses into permanently fixed ones. Subsequently asked to support a major shutdown and turnaround, mapping stakeholders and decision rights so alignment existed before the plant came down.
Water & Wastewater · Asset Management · UK
Programme managed the people and process workstream of a major UK water utility's asset management transformation, aligning operational and maintenance processes across three regions formed from separately merged companies, in readiness for a new enterprise work and asset management system. Included specifying and managing the external delivery team.
Power · Government · Nigeria
Led strategy, business improvement and optimisation for Nigeria's Presidential Task Force on Power, supporting the national power reform programme across generation, transmission and distribution.
Oclas is my specialist energy and infrastructure advisory practice, serving clients across the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Africa. I have worked in the UK sector since 2005 and in Nigeria since 2010. I founded the practice on a simple observation: the biggest decisions in energy and infrastructure are too often advised by the most junior people in the room.
I work differently. I lead every engagement personally, drawing on trusted senior delivery partners where the work requires it. I take fewer clients, go deeper, and stay accountable for outcomes rather than documents.
The specialism is operational performance in heavy asset environments: how work actually gets done, who decides what, which data is trusted, and where value quietly leaks. Across Shell, Chevron, BP and major UK utilities, the pattern has been consistent. The technology usually works. The operating model around it does not.
Most improvement programmes start with what the system says. I start with what people actually do.
The approach is consistent whether the asset is an offshore platform, a refinery or a water network. Map the process as it is documented. Then validate it by spending a day alongside the people running it, in the field and in the office, watching where the documented version and the real one diverge. Bring those differences back to the people who own the process and quantify what each one costs. Then separate what can be fixed now from what genuinely needs a new system.
It is unglamorous and it works. The value is almost always sitting in the gap between the two versions, and no dashboard will show it to you.
Why assets underdeliver their investment case, and where the value actually hides.
Read the insight → Energy & TechnologyWhere the technology genuinely earns its place, and where it is a solution looking for a problem.
Read the insight → Digital & AIWhy AI amplifies whatever already exists, and the five dimensions of genuine readiness.
Read the insight →Tell me the decision you are facing. If I can help, I will tell you how. If I cannot, I will say so and point you towards someone who can.
Or email me directly: [email protected]
OC