ABSTRACT
Oil and gas companies have embraced the sharing economy principles primarily to cut costs. At the same time, these principles have given birth to new logistics strategies like the allocation of the shared resource and the shared information that in turn, modified the management of logistics operations. Recently oil and gas companies have moved their offshore operations further north and into the remote Arctic areas. However, the Arctic Seas are characterised by numerous challenging conditions like severe natural conditions (low temperatures, icing, polar lows, darkness), remoteness from harbours and land infrastructure, and vulnerability of the ecosystem. There is confusion in understanding whether the sharing economy benefits in environments full of uncertainties and complexities like the Arctic demanding waters.
The purpose of this study is to explore how the sharing economy principles emerge and influence offshore logistics operations by facilitating value-creating activities in response to contextual influence. An in-depth qualitative case study presents the development of two offshore field projects located in different Arctic environments.
The analysis of two empirical cases reveals how offshore logistics operations in the Norwegian Barents Sea become involved in the sharing economy through the incorporation of innovative solutions into resource allocation strategies. Transport resource sharing in the Arctic demanding waters means not only greater convenience, highly involved participants and the decrease of costs due to the nature of “sharing” but also ensuring emergency preparedness to oil spills and search-and-rescue operations.
The study provides an understanding of how the sharing economy principles enable several value-creating activities of offshore logistics and create a shared value of collaborative resource utilisation for society and other local industries. It is further shown that some sharing economy principles can have trade-offs for allocation of transport resources in an optimal way to be able to respond quickly to any possible emergencies in hostile environments like the Arctic demanding waters.
