Primavera P6 and Material Resource

One of the problems using material resources is the Duration Type of the Activity. This controls the behavior of all of the resources associated with an Activity.

For example, we go drilling. We have a drilling rig at $100k per day, and $250k of tubulars. Every day we drill it cosrts us $100k, but the materials cost is always $250k no matter how long we spend drilling.

So I like to use "Expenses" for materials. Expenses are always "lump sum" rather than "per diem" no matter what the Duration type of the Activity.  Also it is seldom that I want to "Earn Value" from material resources, and having the cost of Materials as Expenses ratrher than Resources sorts that.....

But in most projects it is necessary to know amounts of materials required at any time period and plan supplies!

Dear All, 

I cannot export from P6 to excel and conversely from excel to P6. The below error message shows: 

"Export failed. Unexpected error from external database driver (1) please contact your administrator to correct the problem"

Please help me to solve the problem. 

Thank you