IFRS Case Study - Palantir Solutions

IFRS Case Study

Overview of client Our client is a leading Exploration and Production company listed on FTSE 250 on London’s Main Market. Their portfolio extends to 31 assets in 12 countries from Nigeria and São, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Tomé and Príncipe JDZ, Congo Brazzaville, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Seychelles, Tanzania and more recently to Middle East. The company’s business spans the full-cycle of E&P from exploration to appraisal, development and production. They are focused in areas that represent globally significant and growing sources of international oil supply and high impact exploration fairways.

Background As the company’s business continued to grow, our client required efficient and scalable tools with clearly defined workflows to improve their forecasting. With an increasing number of assets and countries in their portfolio and an ambitious growth plan, problems and potential issues were: •

Many spreadsheets saved by multiple users, with no defined master model;

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Corporate planning and economists were working from multiple models with different interpretations of terms;

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No clear reporting structure or process existed, so reports were inconsistent and had to be re-created for each reporting process;

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Lack of knowledge sharing between different departments;

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Lack of ability to look at acquisitions or divestments at a corporate level and not just a stand-alone basis.

Palantir identified PalantirCASH and PalantirFINANCIALS as the ideal software solution to solve the client’s problems adding a consistent solution which could be shared across organisational departments and which would add efficiency to their existing workflow.

London Headquarters Tel: +44 (0) 20 7901 3700

Houston Office Tel: +1 (713) 636 9330

Aberdeen Office Tel: +44 (0) 1224 27 0360

Singapore Office Tel: +65 6583 8023

[email protected] www.palantirsolutions.com

Objectives The client asked Palantir to implement a solution which would: •

Have one consistent set of data to be used for modelling and reporting purposes

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Increase knowledge sharing across departments whilst allowing for autonomy where required

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Increase the speed of report generation to increase efficiency

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Use report templates which are reused to save analysts’ time

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Build in methodical processes to forecasting which can scale as the company grows

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Allow for the impact of decisions to quickly be measured on both economic and financial indicators

PalantirCASH highlights: •

An extensible solution for economic evaluation and fiscal modelling.

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Utilises Microsoft Excel for data entry and reporting

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Includes a database for security and standardisation.

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Models complex situations with the power of a database for archiving, versioning and reporting.

PalantirFINANCIALS highlights: •

Integrates directly with economics forecasts

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Rapidly produces IFRS compliant reports

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Links to accounting systems to save time transferring data

Palantir’s Role The client asked Palantir to develop and implement a solution which would enable them to improve efficiency and save man hours by producing forecasts for the economics and financials groups quickly and using the same base data sets. This solution would have to be able to manage the complex fiscal regimes and terms relevant to the countries in their portfolio. With the client, we chose to implement a solution using the PalantirCASH and PalantirFINANCIALS products, which are designed for economic modelling and financial forecasting. The combination of these two software products would improve the ability of the company to model economics globally, allocate business overheads, model hedging, warrants, leases and analyse financing options and requirements. The client had seen the software products in one to one demonstrations and was happy that the solution could scale with their business, both through its linking to new tool and its global fiscal regime library, which will serve them as they take interests in new countries. In addition, the company spoke to some of Palantir’s existing customers in the global client base and following their feedback, they were comfortable that the solution was right for them.






At inception, Palantir worked closely with the client to schedule and agree a realistic yet ambitious project plan. It was important that this included representatives from both the economics and commercial groups and the finance team. Palantir staff worked closely with the client’s employees to bring in existing models, model complex terms, create report templates and train users so they could take the solution on into a working and evolving model. Throughout the project the client was provided with status reports and feedback was two way, to reduce risks and ensure that the project was delivered on time and to budget.

Benefit to the Client With their new workflows our client was able to automatically share data quickly and in a standardised format. This increased productivity and accuracy, while reducing errors, delays and uncertainty. Palantir’s analysis of the existing models enabled the client to review all existing models across their departments, resulting in one common interpretation of the data which can be used by the entire organisation. This resulted in a scalable corporate model in which investment opportunities can be easily incorporated and analysed along with improved reporting capability at multiple levels within the organisation.




