Customer story:

How Aker BP Leveraged XaitPorter to Coordinate 75 Experts and Submit a Record Number of PDOs

How XaitPorter Streamlined Aker BP’s Document Collaboration Aker BP, one of Europe’s largest independent oil companies, replaced their failing MS Word processes with XaitPorter’s enterprise co-authoring solution. By automating formatting and centralizing collaboration, they enabled dozens of experts to work simultaneously on complex Plans for Development and Operation (PDOs).

Business outcomes:

  • Seamless expert collaboration: Successfully coordinated 75 different contributors and reviewers on a single document without file lockouts.
  • Zero manual compilation: Completely eliminated the need to cut, paste, and manually reformat sections from dozens of different writers.
  • Eliminated software crashes: Replaced heavy, easily corrupted MS Word files with a secure, stable cloud-based database.

  • Increased submission volume: Standardized content and automated layouts allowed the team to submit a record number of PDOs at once.
AkerBP logo

Region
Global

Company size
3000+

Industry
Oil and Gas

Solution
XaitPorter

About Aker BP

Aker BP is an independent oil and gas company that explores, develops, and produces oil and gas on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Operating six major field centers and partnering in the Johan Sverdrup field, Aker BP produces around 450 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboepd) and employs over 3,000 people globally.

What are the challenges of using MS Word for complex oil and gas documents?

Using traditional tools like MS Word for complex oil and gas documents leads to file corruption, version control chaos, and massive formatting delays. For Aker BP, compiling input from dozens of specialists caused large files to crash, draining time that should have been spent on content quality.

Developing a Plan for Development and Operation (PDO) requires a mountain of data and multifaceted expertise. Contributions are needed from geological evaluation, reservoir management, drilling, field installation, and HSE. When Aker BP relied on MS Word, writers parsed the document into separate sections via file sharing, which immediately proliferated version control issues.

Once the files reached a certain size due to high-resolution diagrams and charts, the program would frequently crash and corrupt the files. Furthermore, accountability was impossible to track.

"Our most recent PDO project using our old process required 34 different writers to send me their documents individually. After that, I had to cut and paste the content and manually format it. I couldn't keep track of who had accessed the documents or what changes were made. A complete mess." – Silje Josdal Kartfjord, HSSEQ Manager, Subsea Alliance, Aker BP

“XaitPorter is very intuitive and easy to use. Most people figure it out pretty quickly.”

Silje Kartfjord 
HSSEQ Manager, Aker BP

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How does XaitPorter improve expert collaboration for energy companies?

XaitPorter improves collaboration by allowing dozens of experts to co-author large documents simultaneously in a secure, database-driven environment. It automatically handles formatting, version control, and access rights, ensuring that teams can focus entirely on writing high-quality content without breaking the layout or overwriting each other's work.

In the oil and gas sector, leaving a diverse group of specialized engineers to provide input via traditional file sharing is a recipe for chaos. Aker BP transitioned to XaitPorter to break down these silos and establish a single source of truth.

The platform's robust architecture easily handles massive amounts of data without crashing. Because it is database-driven, multiple users can work on the exact same document at the exact same time without locking each other out.

"For one of the documents we just wrote, we had 34 different writers and 41 different reviewers. That means 75 different people worked on the document at the same time. It went smoothly from start to finish." – Silje Josdal Kartfjord, HSSEQ Manager, Subsea Alliance, Aker BP

XaitPorter screen mockup with logo

How much time does Aker BP save on document formatting and compilation?

Aker BP eliminated manual document compilation entirely with XaitPorter. Because the software automatically applies branded layouts, numbering, and formatting to all inserted text and graphics, the team saves countless hours during post-production, enabling them to submit multiple massive projects simultaneously.

Before XaitPorter, the licensing round coordinators spent a frustrating amount of time manually formatting and modifying Word files just to make them presentable.

Today, writers simply focus on the text. XaitPorter enforces strict design templates, meaning that whether an engineer pastes a technical diagram or a block of text from various sources, the final output automatically receives a uniform, highly professional look based on Aker BP's brand identity.

To further streamline the process, Aker BP uses XaitPorter's internal instruction text capabilities. Management can leave unprintable guidelines directly in the document (e.g., "Use this specific bullet style here" or "Ensure all HSE requirements are covered in this section"), ensuring that contributors get it right the first time.

“XaitPorter allows our teams to co-author large documents easily and securely, thanks to features like templates, access control, version control, cross-referencing, automatic indexing, easy diagram placement, and more. It’s a wonderful collaboration tool.”

Henrik Meinich-Bache
Office Administrator, Aker BP

Why is XaitPorter the gold standard for large-scale energy projects?

XaitPorter is the gold standard for energy sector submissions because it effortlessly manages cross-disciplinary input while providing complete audit trails. With built-in version control, automatic indexing, and date-stamps tracking every keystroke, companies ensure strict regulatory compliance and absolute data security.

Since the early 2000s, Aker BP has leveraged XaitPorter to empower over 1,500 global users to produce more than 1,600 highly complex projects.

By standardizing content and relying on XaitPorter's automated workflows, Aker BP has successfully accelerated its production cycles. In recent months, this efficiency allowed the energy giant to submit a record number of PDOs at once—a critical advantage given that exploration and M&A activities are central to Aker BP’s growth strategy.

"XaitPorter allows our teams to co-author large documents easily and securely, thanks to features like templates, access control, version control, cross-referencing, automatic indexing, and easy diagram placement. It’s a wonderful collaboration tool." – Henrik Meinich-Bache, Office Administrator, Aker BP

 

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