Energy Expansion Achieves Start-up Five Months Sooner
The Problem
A brownfield in-situ energy expansion was eight months away from the committed full production milestone on its first wells.
The latest internal projections were estimating that the team would be at least four months late!
This delay would result in an estimated $25M+ of lost in-year revenue. The delay would also push the start-up into winter rather than the planned summer conditions, significantly raising risk exposure.
With the majority of construction already complete, the team had focused on trying to accelerate the C&SU schedule to the point that the C&SU manager would open meetings with,
“You can’t squeeze blood from a rock. You can’t cheat physics. There is no shortcut to circulating and ramping up wells properly if you ever want to get full production from them.”
The Transformation
Running out of visible options, the team partnered with Stroud for an eight-week schedule transformation effort to determine what else could still be done to bring the production timeline back to target (or at least before the worst of winter).
In the first phase of the project, Stroud focussed on playing offense, identifying what opportunities existed to bring the project forward.
Zero-Based Analysis, a structured approach to uncover all of the potential opportunity, was applied to the start-up schedule. The team challenged the previous schedule durations, sequencing and assumptions, developing a “theoretically perfect project”.
The exercise revealed 75% of the remaining start-up time is a potential opportunity!
Zero-Based Analysis identified the critical path to start up as the circulation ramp-up.
Since the construction of the well pads was on track, the only predecessor on the path to production was to have a steam source to begin circulation.
The team was planning to use the new plant to provide steam to the circulation wells.
But any source of steam at the capacity rate and temperature could be used, including the existing plant.
The key to unlocking this opportunity was a steam interconnect pipeline between the existing and new facilities. This pipeline was added to the scope late in the Design Basis at the request of Operations. Its goal was to provide long-term operational flexibility: when one facility is down, its high priority wells could still be fed by the other facility.
If the critical path to start-up is beginning steam circulation in the wells (which takes 3 months) and then ramping up to the first production of the well (another 2 months), the fastest way to do this is via this pipeline from the existing facility. No reason we can’t use it on Day 1!
The team confirmed the existing facility has the sprint capacity to add the circulation without affecting existing wells.
The interconnect pipeline was the true critical path to start-up.
The interconnect pipeline was C&SU’s new #1 priority. It was currently Construction’s #19 priority; they were focusing on the new plant and other assets first.
The contractors were executing the construction, and the project team saw it as out of their scope of influence to change the order of construction.
Given the size of this newly uncovered upside, an integrated “daily priorities” team was formed with representatives from operations, project planning, C&SU and, most importantly, representation from each construction contractor.
This team drove the alignment that everyone at the table had a strong incentive to meet the production milestone. Together, they would have the authority to set daily priorities for each sub-team.
The integrated team built an understanding of the newly optimized start-up sequence and pivoted their people as needed to safely progress the interconnect pipeline as the top priority.
The team also built a central set of KPIs that let them know of any changes or focus that needed to be applied daily.
The Result
Within two weeks, the construction team was aligned on the interconnect pipeline as their #1 priority, and construction had begun.
The team reduced the projected project timeline by 5 months, worth $30MM in additional revenue!
The team had reached start-up before the harsh wither conditions.
Leadership and shareholders were happy with the result. In addition to the financial result, the project team gained a new appreciation for integrated teams and set a precedent for future project teams.
By aligning on the full project critical path and having all groups work toward the same priorities, plans to reduce other project timelines begun!
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