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Comment
As the global economic recovery gathers momentum, the outlook for the oil and gas industry appears mixed. According to IHS CERA, the cost of constructing refineries and petrochemical plants, and of building and operating upstream facilities, has bottomed out and is making a slow march back to pre-recession levels.
Upstream operators will not welcome this news any more than refiners, whose margins are already under extreme pressure and who, in some developed countries, face capacity rationalisation. And yet downstream construction projects continue apace in specific regions, notably China, India and the Middle East.
Despite all this, I am pleased to note that industry analysts report a steady improvement in business activity, businesses appear to have emerged from the “survival” mode and there is evidence of progressive companies continuing to grow.
The articles in this issue of Impact have been compiled to reflect the emerging situation. Because capital projects remain very much on the agenda, we look at the steps you can take to guard against plant underperformance in those key early stages. It is vital that a plant reaches optimal operation in the shortest possible time frame in order to start generating cash. On page 7 we profile a robust methodology that was used at Shell’s Pearl GTL mega-project to help minimise capital and operational costs, enhance plant availability and reliability, and reduce the time to optimal operations.