Operational Excellence in Oil & Gas 2026: eight sessions for people who run a site

The Operational Excellence in Oil & Gas Summit runs at the Norris Conference Center in Houston from November 3 to 5. Tuesday is the workshop day, and Wednesday and Thursday are the two days of the summit. These eight sessions are about the people and the work between the plan and the floor: training that turns into ability, who decides what, what goes on the scorecard, values in daily decisions, one way of working after an integration. None of the eight overlap, so one person can sit in on all of them. Times are Central, Houston local time.

Tuesday, November 3

Workshop B: The Missing Skill in Digital Transformation: Workforce Change Readiness

Yasmin Gutierrez, Director, Learning Excellence & Operations, and Elizabeth Kendrick, Director, Change Management, Phillips 66 · Tuesday, 8 to 9:30 a.m. CT

The frame is digital change, and the session summary puts the weight on people: success “hinges on workforce readiness.” The workshop covers moving from “knowledge to ability” with role-specific training, measuring upskilling “beyond training completion” with performance metrics, change leadership through strategic communication, and subject matter experts and change coaches who keep the gains in place. Kendrick has 20 years in change management, per her speaker page. If the crew finished the course and the job still gets done the old way, this one is about that gap.

Wednesday, November 4

Panel Discussion: Translating Strategy to Action: Bridging the Gap between Strategic Intent and Frontline Action

Gee Lauder, Director, Supply Chain Strategy - Deepwater, Shell, and Jason Howard, Vice President, Planning, NOV · Wednesday, 3:40 to 4:10 p.m. CT

The session summary places the failures in oil and gas operations outside the technology, in “poor workflow integration, lack of trust, change resistance, fragmented data ownership and weak governance.” Its premise is that programs work when they redesign “decision rights, operating models, frontline workflows, incentives and maintenance governance.” The panel covers lining up roles and decision rights with the strategy and closing the gap “between strategic intent and frontline action.” If what headquarters plans and what the shift does have drifted apart, this one is about who decides what in between.

Fireside Chat: Skills for Tomorrow, Today: Bridging the Generation Gap in Oil & Gas

Hugo Ashkar, Risk Management Discipline Lead for Capital Projects, bp; Emmitt Wooten, Former Director of Manufacturing Capability and Workforce Strategy, Dow; and Julie Thyne, Asset Director, Environmental Operations, Diamond Infrastructure Solutions · Wednesday, 4:50 to 5:25 p.m. CT

The session summary starts with how “executive mindset and organizational culture can unintentionally hinder the integration of younger talent.” It also covers drawing the next generation into the industry and “knowledge gaps and change fatigue during organizational restructuring and digital transformation.” Wooten’s speaker page lists four turnarounds executed on plan and unplanned downtime down 5% across four units. For a site where the senior hands and the new hires learned the job in different ways, this one is about getting what one group knows to the other.

Thursday, November 5

The Big Debate: Redefining Metrics for Operational Excellence

Julie Thyne, Asset Director, Environmental Operations, Diamond Infrastructure Solutions · Thursday, 8:05 to 8:35 a.m. CT

The session summary opens with one question: “Are we measuring what matters or just what’s easy to quantify?” Speakers take opposing sides on whether financial KPIs should stay on top or make room for indicators like “employee empowerment and cultural transformation,” whether one framework should fit every organization, and whether real-time data helps or distracts. The room gets polled as it goes. If the board at your site is green and the site doesn’t feel green, this half hour is about what goes on the board. Thyne also leads Workshop C: Building a Culture for High-Performance Operations, Tuesday at 8 a.m., in the same slot as Workshop B.

IDG D: How do we turn Operational Excellence strategies into measurable results?

Jesse Kahle, Senior Director, Operational Excellence & Transformation, Atlas Energy Solutions · Thursday, 10:10 to 10:40 a.m. CT · Interactive Discussion Groups

This is one of seven discussion groups that run at the same time. The agenda gives it a question and no summary, and the event schedule describes the format: facilitated discussions where you “exchange ideas with industry peers, share real-world experiences.” Kahle’s speaker page fills in the host: he leads transformation at Atlas, a proppant, logistics and distributed power provider serving the Permian Basin, after 15 years at Caterpillar, and sums up his approach as “simple strategies, applied with discipline to the right behaviors.” If your site has an OpEx plan and you want to see what it changes on shift, bring that to this table.

Case Study: Lean in Oil & Gas: Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement and ROI

Paul Johnson, Group Senior Vice President, Operational & Business Excellence, Bapco Energies · Thursday, 11:10 to 11:40 a.m. CT · Track B: Operations Excellence

The session summary starts from a familiar problem: companies “rarely struggle to identify opportunities for improvement,” but they struggle to make the results last. Johnson walks through how Bapco Energies moved past Lean training and improvement activity toward “a system that develops ownership”: learning tied to real business challenges, leaders who “helped remove barriers rather than own solutions,” and visibility, governance and recognition to carry continuous improvement across the organization. The summary sets the Lean tools aside and looks at “the conditions required for improvement to sustain itself.” If your site has run the events and watched the gains slide back, this one is about what has to be in place for them to hold.

Case Study: CRC Operational Excellence: Integrating Berry Through the IOCC Operating Model

Brent Ilott, Vice President Operations, California Resources Corporation · Thursday, 1 to 1:30 p.m. CT · Track A: Change Management

The session summary reports that after an organizational redesign and asset integration in early 2026, CRC scaled its operating model across overlapping fields in two months. Ilott covers what had to be in place to move at that pace: a stable technology stack before the reorganization, adoption driven by “removing parallel ways of working, setting a clear end state,” and disciplined planning, scheduling and work execution to stabilize inherited assets and set maintenance priorities with newly integrated teams. His experience runs from operating and maintaining production equipment in the field to leading large teams, per his speaker page. If your site just took on a crew or an asset that ran a different way, this is how one operator moved everyone onto one way of working.

Case Study: Embedding Values for Operational Excellence: From Messaging to Practice

Frank Beck, General Manager, Ethics and Compliance, CITGO Petroleum · Thursday, 1:30 to 2 p.m. CT

The session summary covers how CITGO Petroleum took its values “from a forgotten list to a living framework embedded in daily decisions, leadership behaviors and performance metrics.” It walks through the practical side, with visual cues, recognition programs and a place in performance reviews and appraisals, and the shift “from a culture of blame to a culture of ownership.” If the values are on the wall by the gate and nobody on shift could name them, this one is about putting them into the daily work.

Checked against the event schedule and each speaker page on October 19, 2026. Names, titles and companies are as Oil & Gas IQ lists them. The schedule gives tracks but no rooms, and IQPC can still move a session or a time before the summit, so check the event schedule before you head over.

Every episode of How Plants Run opens with one question: what do you check first every morning, and why? If you run a site and want to answer it, be a guest.