Founded by former executives from a publicly traded E&P, a private equity backed upstream operator launched in the Permian Basin with an aggressive growth profile. In just a few years, the company scaled to nearly 100 operated wells with an eye toward accelerating future growth through accretive acquisitions.
From the outset, leadership recognized that early technology decisions would either enable disciplined growth or create long-term friction. As activity accelerated, the company sought to move beyond spreadsheets and disconnected point solutions and transition to a modern ERP platform that could support rapid scale-up, lean operations, and investor-grade reporting.
Challenge
As well count, spend, and operational activity increased, the limitations of point solutions were amplified. Disconnected systems across accounting, land, production, and field operations restricted the financial visibility and operational efficiency needed to grow with a lean team. Specific challenges included:
- Limited visibility into lease operating expenses (LOE), making it difficult to prioritize well work, manage uptime, and control lifting costs
- Delays in monthly close and a growing volume of post-period adjustments (PPAs), impacting owner confidence and investor reporting
- Poor line of sight into inbound expenses, complicating accruals and distorting near-term financials
- Manual capital tracking that slowed development execution and reduced the ability to make timely, data-driven capital allocation decisions
- Concern that current systems would impede M&A asset onboarding, increasing TSA costs and delaying synergies
The company set out to find an ERP that could unify financials and operations, scale with growth, and support both development execution and M&A activity without adding headcount.
Solution
The operator engaged Stonebridge to lead a full ERP evaluation of best-in-class technologies, combining energy-specific advisory services with proven delivery capabilities.
ERP Evaluation and Selection
Stonebridge conducted a technology-agnostic ERP evaluation grounded in upstream operational realities. The engagement included:
- Current-state process assessment and gap analysis across finance, land, production accounting, procurement, and field operations
- Detailed requirements definition and functional scoring aligned to the company’s growth and M&A roadmap
- RFP development, vendor demonstrations, and side-by-side scorecards
- Total cost of ownership and implementation timeline modeling
- Executive decision support and ERP roadmap development
The selected ERP met the operator’s growth objectives by offering integrated financials, upstream accounting, land management, allocations, and pumper field data capture with SCADA streams natively integrated. The platform provided a single system of record capable of supporting higher well counts, increased transaction volume, and future asset onboarding.
ERP Deployment and Data Conversion
Following selection, Stonebridge led a phased implementation to minimize disruption during active drilling and production operations.
Key elements included:
- Agile project management and phased deployment
- Integration across finance, land, production, and field data
- Data conversion at scale using Stonebridge’s EnerHub platform, offering pre-built connectors to the operator’s existing point solutions
- Migration of historical data from the operator’s legacy accounting, land, and production systems into the new ERP
- Automated reconciliation and quality assurance to ensure data accuracy
- Cutover planning and post-go-live hypercare
- Reusable project IP and solution accelerators reduced overall project timelines and execution risk.
Results
The operator’s new ERP established a scalable operational and financial foundation that supported both organic growth and acquisition readiness.
Measured outcomes included:
Deeper LOE visibility, enabling better well prioritization, improved uptime, and more disciplined cost control
Faster, more reliable monthly closes with fewer PPAs, improving owner satisfaction and investor confidence
Improved expense visibility and accrual accuracy through tighter integration of procurement and accounts payable
Faster, smarter capital execution for development programs with real-time financial insight
Approximately 50 percent reduction in project timelines due to reusable project IP and accelerators
Successful onboarding of a bolt-on acquisition in the eastern Permian Shelf, accelerating time to synergy and materially reducing TSA costs
By selecting and deploying the right ERP early, the operator avoided future replat forming, improved operational efficiency with a lean team, and positioned itself to scale confidently through its next phase of Permian growth.