Today’s conference was brought to you by the letter E. Indeed,the fifth letter of the alphabet loomed large on the first day ofthe Cambridge Energy Research 19th annual Executive Conference inHouston yesterday.

It would seem only a coincidence that “energy” begins with E asmost speakers were talking about E as in electronic, as inE-commerce and E-business. Business-to-business — B-to-B to thosein the know — was another hot topic. The conference began with aspeech by Richard H. Brown, CEO of EDS (Yes, the E stands forElectronic, as in Data Systems).

“One estimate valued E-business in the energy industry at $11billion as a market last year. And the source of that was ‘BusinessWeek.’ By 2003, that number will grow to 170-plus billion dollars.That’s 15.5 times greater than last year; that’s 1,400% per year,”Brown enthused. He encouraged a ballroom full of listeners to “goE” and “embrace E” and gave some examples of those who have.

“Consider HoustonStreet.com or Altra Energy; Altra is alreadyhandling 40% of the industry’s natural gas liquids — real-worldexamples of how E has already entered the industry. The networkedeconomy is changing all the rules. And it’s not surprising manycompanies are unsure, frankly, how to play in the new rules of thegame called E. Some are not sure how it will benefit them, so thequestion becomes, how can you put the E in energy?”

Brown gave an example where E-business over the Internet canstreamline business practices: contracting for a drilling rig.”Consider the time, resources and money spent on this activitytoday and wonder if you got the best price available globally. Nowthink about using an electronic auction service. It has immediatebenefits. It’s quicker; it provides an instantaneous global base ofresources to choose from and ultimately reduces the expense youpay. You can tap into a virtually unlimited reservoir of resources,and all on line.”

E-commerce is all well and good, “But the annual revenues ofE-commerce, at about $20 billion, pale in comparison withbusiness-to-business transactions, which should reach a trilliondollars by 2003,” said Conoco CEO Archie W. Dunham. “Today,companies in virtually every sector of the economy are using thistechnology to make purchases, control inventories, plan production,manage supplier relationships and reach customers more effectively.I would bet that just about every company here today is exploringways to use the Internet to become more efficient and profitable.We are at Conoco.”

And so they are at Australia-based Broken Hill Proprietary(BHP), said CEO Paul M. Anderson, formerly president of DukeEnergy. However, Anderson said his company merely views E-businessas a tool and — not unlike the fax machine — not the mother ofa new business strategy.

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