Posts Tagged ‘construction project’

Capital Investments in Refining Expected to Rebound in 2012

Thursday, July 21st, 2011 by admin

In a recent Oil & Gas Journal article, dated July 13, 2011, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that after a slow down of refining project investments in 2011, it expects to see an increase in projects completed in 2012, thereby adding 2.4 million bpd in global refining capacity.

The following is a list of projected to complete major projects by end of 2012:

· Motiva’s 325,000 bpd expansion in Port Arthur, Texas

· Mexico’s Minatitlan’s 150,000 bpd expansion

· India’s Bharat Oman’s Bina 120,000 bpd refinery

· India’s HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd.’s 180,000 bpd refinery

· India’s Essar’s Vadinar 80,000 b/d expansion

It is expected that despite an increase in refining capacity that global demands will reduce surplus capacity thereby improving refining margins. In contrast, Oil & Gas Journal reported in June 2011 to  expect continued weak refining margins for certain products and markets.

Problems with Typical Project Cost Reporting

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 by admin

Managers track project performance using a variety of tools. One of the standard metrics applied is the Actual Costs versus Budget over time. The project reflected in the example plot may be considered successful by many project managers because the cost performance is better than budgeted. There are many reasons for these results in addition to the chance that the project manager is “a very cost-driven” individual.

time-vs-cost2

However, other plausible reasons include: 1) work actually completed is less than planned, 2) the original project estimate was based on incomplete data, 3) the original budget remained unchanged after project authorization, and, 4) the initial project conditions do not represent the current conditions.