I just confirmed that it is the bind variable peeking, causing the optimization to be delayed to the Execute phase, that was causing the long Execute time. Simple test - I just ran the statement with literals instead and then the Parse phase is long and the Execute phase drops to 0: call count cpu elapsed disk query current rows ------- ------ -------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- Parse 1 11.19 11.94 0 0 0 0 Execute 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0 Fetch 2 0.00 0.00 0 342 0 21 ------- ------ -------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- total 4 11.19 11.95 0 342 0 21 Regards, Brandon Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message or attachments hereto. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of this company shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l