Oil company project manager: "I want a rig and I want it now." Drilling contractor: "Well, sir, we have one available but it requires a five-year commitment at a zillion dollars." Project manager: "But my field will only require 12 months to develop. Can't we come to some type of compromise?" Drilling contractor: "Of course, sir. How about five years and a zillion dollars?" Ryan Isherwood, president and chief operating officer of Houston-based <$iOneOffshore >, a provider of offshore upstream industry data, research and analysis, says this scenario is too familiar in the oil field. "It has all the makings of a fiscal nightmare," he told attendees at a Gulf of Mexico operational risk-management conference in Houston recently. "Rig contracting...likely stands as one of the biggest inefficiencies in American industry today...Rig procurements during the last few years have seen the offshore industry burn through approximately $10 billion per year. This is big money." There are 18-wheel tractor trailers doing the jobs of Volkswagens and other mismatching in the field. Of the ultradeep rig time booked for 2001, 48% is committed to water depths of less than 5,000 feet, he says. "In many instances, that makes about as much sense as hooking up a boat trailer to an 18 wheeler. We've got access to tremendous technologies and outstanding engineering, and we simply are not allowing either of them to fulfill their potential." The industry has to find ways to optimize the utilization of assets. He suggests opening the secondary market, to reduce stranded supply. "When the contractor wants his long-term commitment, oil companies will be more willing to pay the zillion dollars-knowing that they can sublease their underutilized rig time on the secondary market. Contractors, meanwhile, will gain a more solid grasp of their cash flows as they sign more long-term commitments." Premium assets will be allocated to projects for which they were intended. "Volkswagen rigs will properly be assigned to Volkswagen blocks, and the 18-wheeler rigs will get deployed to the deepwater challenges they were designed to handle." Presently, 12 major oil companies are participating in a beta test of a new knowledge-based, collaborative platform that will be accessible by Internet in April called RigInsight, developed by OneOffshore, which was formed last year in the merger of <$iPetrodata Ltd. > of Aberdeen, Scotland, and <$iOffshore Data Services Inc. > of Houston.