The value of understanding your projects…

Technical & Commercial Evaluation & Validation

The Projects Team (TPT) are an organisation who help other companies realise value and efficiency through rigorous application of management and technical processes. The case study below is a real-life example of how their processes offered huge savings, identified several efficiency opportunities and encouraged continuous improvement.

  1. Task
    TPTs SMEs were tasked to implement & deliver the following evaluation activities on the ISBL FEED Study deliverables submitted by a technology owner under a lump sum basis for the client (classified).
  2. Activities
    The TPT SMEs implemented the following activities:

    – An impartial cold eyes evaluation & validation review of the study;
    – A bottleneck evaluation to determine all design limitations within the plant design to engineer out future debottlenecking and major CapEx investment for the 1st 20% production capacity increase;
    – The Application of TPT’s and the client’s value improvement practices to optimise plant performance operability;
    – An evaluation & qualification of all identified bulk quantities which is a critical aspect in achieving overall project success;
    – The Generation of an AACEI Class II cost estimates utilising the evaluated, validated & corrected FEED study Technical & Commercial deliverables. Validate the accuracy parameters met the client’s internal governance structure;
    – The generation of a full evaluation Risk & Opportunities Register including the identified cost levels and risk factors plus a full evaluation findings & recommendations report (Rev. A1 & C1).
  3. Findings
    Following the TPT SMEs implementation of the technical & commercial evaluation, an optimised engineered solution was presented, with all clarifications, technical & commercial errors being addressed. This resulted in a total identified overestimated value of 29.25m€, almost 30% of the original total project ISBL upgrade cost estimate, that was derived from the following:

    – Identified errors, optimisation & savings within the estimated minor equipment deliverables totalling 2.9m€;
    – Identified errors, optimisation & savings within the estimated steelwork structure deliverables totalling 0.9m€;
    – Identified errors, optimisation & savings within the estimated pipework materials deliverables totalling 3.1m€;
    – Identified errors, optimisation & savings within the estimated instrumentation deliverables totalling 7.2m€;
    – Identified errors, optimisation & savings within the estimated total electrical deliverables of 3.4m€;
    – Identified errors & savings within the estimated total design and engineering costs totalling 3.3m€;
    – Identified savings within the estimate defined construction overheads/expenses costs totalling 8.45m€.
  4. Outcome
    This enabled the client to reduce the overall estimated project cost requested at the Final Investment Decision (FID) as well as helping our client to negotiate a lower contract price with the technology owner.

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Non-transferable travel tickets – 25% saving in annual travel budget

An operator in the oil and gas industry noticed that there were inefficiencies in their internal travel system. A short desktop exercise highlighted that the organisation was hugely inefficient when it came to booking flights – incurring costs for fight transfers, name changes and last minute cancellations.

The operator decided to trial booking non-refundable tickets instead. All employees must travel on the train, plane or car they had booked and could not be transferred.

This small change has resulted in a 25% cost saving in travel across the entire company. This also would have reduced the carbon footprint for the organisation overall.

A spokesperson for the company said, ‘it is amazing how one small change like this makes such a big difference. If a person needs to change their flight it is escalated all the way to the top for approval – so everyone here has changed their mindset to ask themselves if they really need to travel, and when. It’s a personal ownership of being more efficient. It makes sense.’

Are you familiar with your travel policy?

Carbon efficiency – Gas turbine routine fuel changeovers

Glen Lyon has 4 gas turbines which typically run of fuel gas to provide electrical power to the plant. Each turbine is duel fuel meaning they can also operate on diesel.

In order to check this duel fuel facility each unit is run on diesel for four hours each month. This is to perform a number of key performance checks while on a liquid fuel. The Glen Lyon team identified that these checks could be performed in 15 minutes. Reducing the duration of diesel combustion by 3.75 hours. This change gas now been formalized on the FPSO and lessons shared with other BP assets for implementation where possible.

Cost Saving = £51,700 in Carbon + £855,000 in diesel
Diesel saving = 1710 M3/yr
Total CO2 saving= 2048 TCO2/yr
FuelHoursCO2 per testCO2 per year
Diesel0.257373
Gas3.75683549
Diesel41155970
Gas000
Total Saving2048

By replacing diesel combustion with Gas combustion the mass of CO2 is reduced as per tonne, diesel emits more CO2 than Gas. Further more Gas has a higher energy value so less gas needs to be burnt to generate the same power as diesel

In addition to Carbon and diesel savings, this change prevent the turbine burners being choked up so quickly and make efficiency savings through not having to needlessly replace the burners, changeout diesel filters and time saving within the electrical technician’s week.

This improvement was Identified and executed through BP’s Challenge , Check and Change initiative

Safehouse – Safehouse Habitat applied to LPG Tanker

Problem Statement   

An LPG tanker was in need of urgent repairs to its hull in order to remain within the parameters of its license to operate. Due to the nature of the ship and its cargo, carrying out hot work to repair such damage would normally require the ship’s tanks to be purged of all traces of hydrocarbon gas and the work to be carried out in a dry dock. In addition, the work would have to be carried out in a very restricted space on the inside of the vessel.

Aims

Avoidance of the need to purge the ships tanks of all hydrocarbon gas, taking the ship off-course, saving the operator thousands in associated costs and delays.

Method

Safehouse’s Technical Director visited the vessel to identify where would be safe to assemble the habitats and carry out hot work. To ensure the repair work complied with maritime regulations, Safehouse reviewed its procedures and developed a work pack detailing the proposed solutions, including having a Safehouse team on standby to immediately mobilise the equipment. Our solution was to build two habitats; one on the exterior of the hull, and another between the hull and gas storage tank. This allowed for the segregation of the hot work activities from any potential hydrocarbon sources. The flexibility of the SAFEHOUSE habitat combined with the expertise of our technicians allowed us to overcome any obstacles and to be installed easily in restricted areas.

Impact

The Panama Canal authorities were initially very reluctant to allow hot work to go ahead within their waters on an LPG tanker that had not been confirmed gas-free. Safehouse liaised closely and contributed to the authorities HAZOP process to satisfy their concerns. When the project was completed on time and without incident, the ship operator and canal authorities were satisfied that their extremely high safety standards had been met.

Total Savings Anticipated

168 man and machine hours saved

£350,000 estimated.

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