Performance Improvement People- Cost efficiency through behavioural readiness

/in , , , /by

Submitted by Performance Improvement People

Impact

Outcome: On commencement of project execution there was an immediately high productivity ratio, and better-than-planned productive day.  These efficiencies have allowed for increased scope liquidation and therefore increased value for the same spend.

Learning: We believe this was the first time this approach has been tried within an oil & gas execution environment, and as such some approaches brought greater success than others.

The best value activities appeared to be:

  • Team profiling resulted in objective identification of weak points and the early opportunity to manage them.
  • Scenario-based workshops flushed out areas of misalignment and misunderstanding; meaning gaps could be plugged prior to entering the high cost execution environment.
  • Small, diverse, group workshops allowed a free flow of discussion between representatives of different groups.  This was an unplanned side effect of the original strategy and the relationships made during these sessions have underpinned a great deal of problem solving in execution.
  • Meeting audits gave objective feedback as to how data and decision making flowed through the project.  This gave a very clear identification of bottlenecks.

Description of Best Practice

Challenge: An operator was running a life extension project for a major North Sea asset.  The project team consisted of representatives of a number of different organisations, including Operator, Tier 1 Contractor and the extended supply chain.

Performance Improvement People were asked to address the challenge of bringing together these different organisations into a single, cohesive team to ensure high efficiency and productivity in the execution environment.

Action: Performance Improvement People used various behavioural analysis techniques to measure and understand the behavioural norms present in the combined team.  These norms could then be used as a basis for identifying hot spots and weak points, which in turn provided a practical understanding of inefficiencies in execution.

Many of the tools used are widely available, and primarily used within the context of recruitment, assessment and personal development.  We chose to apply them within the context of project delivery, using the data to develop the project execution model rather than for individual development.
The diagnostic tools included work-related activities such as psychometric analysis, creating and delivering practice scenario discussions, carrying out meeting audits, work-process analysis, team workshops sessions and site-based fabrication maintenance ‘mock-up’ exercises.
The overall impact was to allow the leadership team to truly understand the norms in their business and how they may impact on future work, especially joint project delivery, as well as giving key team members the opportunity to understand the impact of their own behaviours on others around them. In turn this lead to greater efficiency through improved communication, reduction in duplication of work, clearer processes, more effective meetings and reduced overall meeting footprint.

Contact: Morna Ronnie (morna.ronnie@pi-people.co.uk)

ConocoPhillips lowers cost and speeds up plugging and abandonment

/in , , , /by

ConocoPhillips has made significant savings on a complex and challenging well plugging and abandonment campaign in the UK southern North Sea by taking a ‘campaign’ approach and working collaboratively with vendors.

The company’s plugging and abandonment campaign in the southern North Sea focused on 15 offshore wells across a 541 day work programme in 2014. The teams adopted a ‘campaign’ approach to the tasks in hand, proactively engaging with personnel, working collaboratively with vendors and continually challenging assumptions. As a result, it only took 435 days which reduced costs by 35 per cent, saving over £50 million.

The wells were originally developed in the 1970s so there were a number of challenges to overcome. The team incorporated a wide variety of skill sets including, drilling, completion, intervention, fluids and wellhead specialists to ensure the safest and most cost effective solutions and tools were used in all cases.

Due to the unknowns of 30-40 year old wells, the team had to continually learn, formulate, apply and reassess mitigation strategies making constant suggestions for improvement throughout. By remaining as flexible as possible and applying a rigorous approach to ensuring that risks were controlled as changes were made, every scenario had back-up plans identified up-front which was pivotal to delivering the performance improvements.

Gerry Cooper, UK well operations manager, commented: “Our objective was to safely simplify our infrastructure in the area to reduce the cost impact of assets that were no longer producing. We also wanted to enhance the focus of our integrated operations team and demonstrate the value of collaboration.

“The success of the project really hinged on close collaboration between onshore and offshore, functional groups within ConocoPhillips and our suppliers. Thanks to this teamwork, we jointly delivered an outstanding business result – re-focusing the right people on efficient implementation, reducing operating costs, and safely achieving our goal at a much lower decommissioning cost than originally estimated.”

The learnings from this campaign are now being shared widely across the industry and the approach continues throughout ConocoPhillips’ ongoing southern North Sea plugging and abandonment and decommissioning campaign.

ConocoPhillips – Tackling the unique challenges of decommissioning in a mature basin in a cost competitive environment

/in , , , /by

Submitted by ConocoPhillips

Impact

The company’s 2014 plugging and abandonment campaign in the Southern North Sea focused on 15 offshore wells across a 541 day work programme. Thanks to the teams adopting a campaign approach to the tasks in hand, proactively engaging with personnel, working collaboratively with vendors and continually challenging assumptions, it only took 435 days. This resulted in costs being reduced by 35%. The learnings from this campaign are now being shared widely across the industry and the approach continues throughout ConocoPhillips’ ongoing Southern North Sea plugging and abandonment/decommissioning campaign.

Description of Best Practice

Being able to safely and successfully eliminate over 100 days from an offshore workscope in a mature basin might seem optimistic, but this is just what a team from ConocoPhillips did on a complex and challenging well plugging and abandonment campaign in the UK Southern North Sea in 2014. In a time where there is an urgent need for the industry to work co-operatively and innovatively to maximise economic recovery from the UKCS, being able to deliver such tangible results has never been more important. ConocoPhillips’ operations in the area date back over 40 years starting with the Viking field discovery in 1968, followed by first gas production in 1972.

Today, the company operates a complex portfolio of platforms, normally unmanned installations, pipelines and subsea developments in the Southern North Sea, which export production with that from other third-party operators to the Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal in Lincolnshire. “Our objective was to safely simplify our infrastructure in the area to reduce the cost impact of assets that were no longer producing,” says Gerry Cooper, UK Well Operations Manager for ConocoPhillips. “We also wanted to enhance the focus of our UK Integrated Operations team and demonstrate the value of collaboration.”

With these Southern North Sea wells originally being developed in the 1970s, there were a number of challenges to overcome. The team was put together incorporating a wide variety of skill sets including, drilling, completion, intervention, fluids and wellhead specialists to ensure the safest and most cost effective solutions and tools were used in all cases. Due the unknowns with 30-40 year old wells, the team had to continually learn, formulate, apply and reassess mitigation strategies making constant suggestions for improvement throughout.

By remaining as flexible as possible and applying a rigorous approach to Management of Change, every scenario had back-up plans identified up-front which was pivotal to delivering the performance improvements. Gerry Cooper adds: “The success of the project really hinged on close collaboration between onshore and offshore, functional groups within ConocoPhillips and our suppliers. Thanks to this teamwork, we jointly delivered an outstanding business result – re-focusing the right people on efficient implementation, reducing operating costs, and safely achieving our goal at a much lower decommissioning cost than originally estimated.”

ConocoPhillips – Making logistical efficiency improvements

/in , , , /by

Submitted by ConocoPhillips

Impact

As a result of collaboration on all of these initiatives, we have successfully managed to reduce the company’s passenger cost per flight and at the same time increase seat utilisation. This is a typical example of how integrating our people and improving our work processes facilitated by the use of new technology can clearly benefit the company. Impact of best practice – a clear focus on delivery and where opportunities exist, we have either improved their efficiency or reduced their cost, resulting in: a cost/GPB per person reduction of 12%; an increase in seat utilisation by 7%.

Description of Best Practice

 For ConocoPhillips and the rest of the oil and gas industry, one of the largest day-to-day costs incurred in the management of our offshore operations is helicopters. It’s something we can’t function without yet be complacent and assume that because it’s necessary we can’t make efficiencies and cost savings. This was the challenge faced by the logistics team within ConocoPhillips UK where effectively managing the safe flow of personnel to and from our North Sea operations was paramount.

Making improvements in how we use our available helicopter seats and decreasing the actual costs incurred by each flight was also necessary. The first step was to move the logistics operations team to a co-location alongside the integrated planning and materials front-line support group at Rubislaw House. Being based within the company’s cutting-edge Integrated Operations Centre meant new technology was at hand within the logistics hub. Not only did this allow better monitoring of conditions offshore, it also improved the ability of the onshore aviation team being able to visibility to track flights to and from the offshore installations.

A 7-day service to the company’s offshore operations is now in place, an obvious winner in a 365-day a year business. But could the logistics team continue to make these efficiency improvements, yet still work to reduce costs?

Tracy Morrison, UK Logistics Manager explains:

“By raising the awareness of the efficiency initiative within the group, implementing performance measures and reviewing our existing processes for tracking costs across the business, we have been able to focus clearly on delivery and where opportunities exist, we have either improved their efficiency or reduced their cost.”

The change to the offshore core crew rota from 2 weeks offshore/3 weeks at home to 2 weeks offshore/2 weeks at home brought an additional opportunity for the logistics team to make further improvements. Working closely with the helicopter providers, were able to modify flight schedules and reduce the overall number of flights required to safely service the ConocoPhillips offshore operations in the UK.

Contact: Sandra Duncan
sandra.duncan@conocophillips.com

Digitalisation improves efficiency of ship brokering process

/in , , , /by

Aberdeen based Shipbrokers Online Limited (Shipbroker.com) launched earlier in 2015, offering an innovative digital platform to manage the shipbroking process that promises to transform the shipping market and drive efficiencies in the brokering process.

The newly launched online platform will create a more efficient, cost effective and transparent shipbroking environment by replacing traditional shipbrokers with an advanced and user-friendly online service.

The technology behind shipbroker.com uses the most up-to-date digital processes but works in much the same way as leading travel or real estate search engines.

The company was established to put the power into the hands of vessel charterers and operators by creating an online marketplace that offers significant savings in brokerage fees and removes unnecessary complexity from the process. It also makes tendering a completely transparent exercise.

The founders of Shipbroker.com have over 30 years’ experience in the shipping and oil and gas industries and have been on both sides of the chartering process.

Kenny MacLeod, Shipbrokers Online Limited’s Chairman said: “After more than two years of development and testing the platform is now ready for use. Against a backdrop of increasing uncertainty in the oil and gas industry, now is the time for a disruptive technology like Shipbroker.com. It demonstrates tangible solutions to help charterers and the supply chain cut costs and creates efficiencies to help secure the future of the industry”.

“We are speaking to a number of interested charterers and vessel operators and look forward to working with them as they continue to trial the platform.”

Please view a video describing how efficiencies are achieved here.

PlanSea Limited- Cost reduction of UKCS marine support operations through efficient fleet scheduling

/in , , , /by

Submitted by PlanSea Limited

Impact

  • The study has shown that there is potential to improve the efficiency of the vessel fleeting arrangements by moving to a schedule where vessels service multiple locations.
  • This has the potential to reduce considerably the number of vessel days procured through the efficiencies which in turn will offer cost savings.
  • More work is required to validate the scale of actual savings.
  • improved data management has the potential to greatly enhance operations control and oversight of KPIs
  • Reduced overall vessel time at sea will enhance Health, Safety and Environmental impacts
  • Additionally the software has the potential to impact positively on operations where the assets have a more diverse geographical spread and where fleeting decisions are more complex.

 

Description of Best Practice

Marine support constitutes a large part of the OPEX budget. Any savings realised translate into lower lifting costs, which in turn can support extended field life and, in some cases, new field viability.

A single Platform Supply Vessel (PSV) can cost around £3.5M in annual charter fees, with fuel and port costs adding substantially to the overall cost. There are circa 250 PSVs in the North Sea, circa 1500 PSVs globally.

There is enormous complexity involved in planning and scheduling material for offshore. This means that many operations simplify the process by “fixing” sailing schedules well in advance, forcing other schedules to work around these fixed points. At present, there are very few decision support tools in this area that could help break this logjam.

Nexen Petroleum UK Ltd commissioned PlanSea, a spin-out from The Robert Gordon University (RGU), to examine their UKCS operations to determine whether recent developments in machine learning and optimization could impact positively on their marine support costs.

The study used PlanSea scheduling software to reschedule 65 weeks of recent historical operational offshore support activity under realistic and pessimistic assumptions and using the same data and core fleet. The outcomes were compared on KPIs with the results of actual operations.

Features of the PlanSea scheduling software include :

  • maximising vessel utilisation and efficiency through optimised scheduling
  • right-sizing” vessel fleets
  • minimizing spot market (short term hire) exposure
  • supporting vessel sharing/collaboration schemes (in line with the recent Wood Report)
  • managing operational information including strong interoperability with enterprise information systems
  • minimising time at sea (thus minimising health, safety & environmental risk)

 

Contact: Jim Cargill
jim@plansea.co.uk

Shell – Facility Risk Review

/in , , , /by

Submitted by Shell

Impact

Reduced occurrence of high-impact surprise events and their associated integrity and reliability impact.

We have implemented this process across our portfolio in 2014 and have witness a significant reduction in the occurrence of the most significant integrity and reliability related events.

 

Description of Best Practice

We have implemented a process for more pro-active and holistic risk management of technical risks during the Operate phase of the asset lifecycle. The process rigorously prioritises key risks and leads to higher quality integration of technical knowledge and insight into business decision making. The process lends itself particularly well to late-life assets where prioritisation of resources, as well as pro-active management of high impact risks (integrity and reliability) is particularly relevant.

Key components of the process and the associated infrastructure are:

  • the role of dedicated risk screener in the asset
  • a central database
  • a structured process to bring different discipline input together in an efficient way
  • an approach to engage staff and leaders in the company to  increase awareness, common understanding and skill in risk management
  • an approach to engage staff and leaders in the company to  increase awareness, common understanding and skill in risk management

 

Shell – Hand held infra-red scanner for piping and structural replacements

/in , , , , /by

Submitted by Shell

Impact

  • Significant increase in speed – replacing previous surveying and engineering process (including hand-offs and waiting periods) with a more integrated and rapid approach.
  • This increase in speed reduces the integrity risk associated with temporary repairs.
  • More efficient use of platform beds (core crew resources)
  • More efficient use of inspection resources by reduced requirement to inspect temporary repairs

Description of Best Practice

We have changed the way we go about surveying and engineering of like-for-lie pipespool and structural replacements. We store an infrared handheld scanner offshore for undertaking surveys and have instructed core crew members in the use of them. Scan data is uploaded and converted to a full fabrication isometric within a few hours of receipt. The isometrics is then passed onto a fabricator for manufacturing.

Contact: Wessel de Haas, Shell

Nexen – Journey to change beliefs to improve water injection rates

/in , , , /by

Submitted by Nexen

Impact

Nexen’s cultural beliefs and the marginal gains campaign soon became integrated into everyday procedures – and soon the results were plain to see.

The water injection campaign helped drive a 40% improvement in water injection rates across within six months of implementation.

Description of Best Practice

Nexen Petroleum UK management team set on journey to evolve Nexen’s performance from a top quartile position to become to a Best-In-Class operator.

Leadership understood that workforce collaboration and two-way communication was crucial in achieving cultural transformation, specifically in influencing a paradigm shift to create new experiences, beliefs and behaviours to deliver top business results and establish a common language which would drive accountability both individually and collectively across the whole business.

A suite of tools were developed to equip employees in implementing the changes but to naturally engrain the new ways of working into everyday tasks. The toolkit consisted of eight cultural beliefs and the deployment of four working tools – focussed recognition, storytelling, feedback and accountability.

One example was recognising the need to improve our water injection performance. Nexen ran a series of multi-discipline engagement workshops to empower employees into changing beliefs and experiences about the importance of water in enhancing production, which helped drive a 40% improvement in water injection rates.

To implement change, establishing a clear purpose and understanding was essential. The company set out clear messaging on why water injection was extremely important to our operations. Nexen created new experiences that led to the implementation of the right processes to make water injection a priority. Water injection is now a top focus offshore and features on the top line in our daily reports.

Nexen was also inspired by the concept of Marginal Gains Theory, created by the British Olympic Cycling Team, which involves breaking down routine work activities to find small efficiencies or enhancements which accumulate into significant benefits and savings.  Nexen’s leaders encouraged onshore and offshore teams to work together on campaign focused on driving improvements and better working practices from everyday tasks.

Contact: Ray Riddoch, Nexen Petroleum U.K. Limited

Shell – Optimum frequency to perform well integrity tests

/in , , , /by

Submitted by Shell

Impact

  • Reduced planned losses associated with nominal fixed period well integrity testing frequency
  • Increased level of assurance on well integrity
  • Increased ability to pro-actively manage well integrity

Description of Best Practice

We have developed a method for deriving appropriate Christmas tree and downhole safety valve test frequencies using a statistical model. The model is based on actual historical valve integrity test data gathered in the field. Provided sufficient data is available, the method allows for test intervals to be set based on real and actual performance data (where available) and move away from fixed-term guidance in an appropriate and risk-based manner.

Contact: Wessel de Haas, Shell