Execution excellence allowed ExxonMobil to start up the Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas project ahead of schedule in 2014.
Photo by Richard Dellman
How does ExxonMobil’s project execution benefit from new technology?
project issues before moving from one phase to the next. We have seen major projects in the industry get derailed due to a constant re- cycling of poor decisions, resulting in the delay of critical engineering deliverables. This can have a sig- nificant negative impact, including driving up costs and delaying proj- ect completion. We must eliminate uncertainty as early as possible to ensure that you enhance project predictability for both cost and schedule performance.
again for engineering, procuring equipment, fabricating facilities, hooking up modules, building ship hulls, performing pre- commissioning and other work. In particular, their learning curve has grown tremendously, espe- cially with their participation in our design-one, build-multiple approach. This has helped us increase overall project predict- ability, lower costs and achieve faster project completion.
of a floating production, storage and offloading vessel and a tension-leg drilling platform in an industry-record 34 months. We then adopted the design- one, build-multiple concept when we essentially replicated Kizomba A for Kizomba B and delivered the same scope of work in an industry-record 31 months. We have since used the approach many times, including at Sakhalin-1 in Russia and both the initial and expansion heavy- oil projects at Kearl in western Canada, as well as at our joint venture in Qatar with RasGas and Qatargas to build multiple LNG trains. We also plan to use it with the future SAGD oil sands project in western Canada and the potential Liza deepwater development in Guyana.
Plugge: New technology, which mainly comes from ExxonMobil Upstream Research, improves project economics and is critically important amid today’s lower oil and gas prices. A good example is in Canada, where we could use solvent-assisted steam to produce more bitumen from our Aspen development. This new technology, along with other capital-efficiency initiatives, has significantly reduced costs. What other competitive advantages does ExxonMobil have in project execution?
When did ExxonMobil have its first big success with the design-one, build-multiple approach?
How else do you achieve better predictability?
Plugge: It’s critical that we select contractors with the core competency for the work we want done. EMDC has built a global network of contractors to whom we return time and time
Flood: It started with the Kizomba A and B deepwater developments in Angola. We completed Kizomba A in 2004, including installation and startup
Flood: First is our disciplined ExxonMobil Capital Project Sys-
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