Main content | back to top
Finance in Projects
Finance plays a major role in supporting the development and delivery of Shell's major upstream and downstream projects. For example, Bonga (in Nigeria), Sakhalin II (in Russia), Athabasca Oil Sands (in Canada). In all cases there is a "Finance in Projects" team on the ground at the project's location.
The finance team, headed by a Project/Commercial Finance Manager, typically gets involved very early on in the project - usually at the time of "opportunity identification" through to actual execution of the project and production.
A typical day will include:
- updating the project risk matrix, reviewing the robustness of mitigating actions and residual risks
- evaluating the project economics and commercial evaluation of tenders
- ensuring robustness of the cost and schedule estimates, in line with the contractors and commodities markets
- working with stakeholders to review the approach in the heated contracted market
- contributing to a contracting strategy, working with the Contracting and Procurement team
These activities require a range of competences; commercial skills and understanding of the external contracting market; risk identification, analysis and valuation with mitigation techniques and strategies; cost and schedule estimating techniques; stakeholder analysis and management strategies; contract strategies and commercial evaluation of tenders; and tender board techniques.
Finance roles in Shell's multi-billion dollar portfolio of projects are high profile and provide a challenging environment.