OIL AND GAS

PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR THE OIL & GAS INDUSTRY

1. Course Overview

Oil and gas projects operate in an environment where large capital investments, complex engineering activities, demanding schedules, strict regulatory requirements, multiple contractors, and significant operational risks must be managed at the same time. This four-day Project Management for the Oil & Gas Industry programme is designed to build practical project management capability for professionals involved in the planning, execution, control, and delivery of energy projects.

The programme takes participants through the project lifecycle from opportunity identification and project justification to scope definition, planning, scheduling, cost control, risk management, execution, change control, performance measurement, recovery, handover, and close-out. The emphasis is on practical judgement and usable project management tools rather than theory alone.

Participants will work through realistic oil and gas scenarios, planning exercises, risk activities, scheduling tasks, project-control situations, and a final integrated case study that brings the major tools together.

2. Course Objectives

Explain the lifecycle and management environment of oil and gas projects.
Understand how projects are evaluated, justified, approved, and prepared for execution.
Develop project objectives, requirements, scope, deliverables, and success criteria.
Plan project activities around time, cost, resources, risks, and stakeholder expectations.
Apply practical scheduling techniques including network logic, critical path, float, and Gantt planning.
Understand project cost estimation, budgeting, forecasting, and performance control.
Identify project risks, assess their effects, and select appropriate response strategies.
Manage project teams, stakeholders, communications, and interfaces more effectively.
Control changes while protecting project scope, cost, schedule, quality, and delivery commitments.
Use performance information, including earned value concepts, to support corrective decisions.
Recognise project underperformance and develop practical recovery actions.
Plan effective project handover, completion, close-out, and lessons learned.

3. Key Competencies Developed

Project Strategy: Understand project selection, strategic alignment, business justification, and investment decision considerations.

Project Planning: Translate requirements into a structured scope, WBS, schedule, cost plan, resource plan, and deliverable framework.

Project Controls: Monitor time, cost, progress, resources, quality, risk, and changes using practical project-control techniques.

Risk Management: Identify threats and opportunities, assess exposure, assign ownership, and implement response actions.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management: Coordinate multidisciplinary teams and maintain productive relationships with clients, contractors, regulators, and management.

Project Recovery: Diagnose causes of delay or cost pressure and develop realistic recovery and corrective-action plans.

Project Completion: Prepare for handover, closure, documentation, financial completion, and lessons learned.

4. Who Should Attend?

This programme is suitable for professionals involved in the planning, management, control, execution, commercial administration, engineering, and delivery of oil and gas projects.

Project Managers
Assistant Project Managers
Project Engineers
Project Coordinators
Project Controls Professionals
Planning and Scheduling Engineers
Cost Engineers
Commercial Managers
Contract Administrators
Engineering Managers
Procurement Professionals
Construction Managers
Operations Managers
Business Development Professionals
Technical Managers
HSE and Quality Professionals involved in projects
Senior Management and project decision-makers
Professionals transitioning into oil and gas project management

5. Training Methodology

Instructor-led professional sessions
Oil and gas case studies
Group discussions and facilitated problem solving
Project planning and scheduling exercises
Risk assessment activities
Cost and project-control exercises
Scenario-based decision making
Stakeholder management activities
Project recovery simulation
Practical templates and project management tools
Team-based integrated project exercise

Course Curriculum

1

1. Understanding Oil & Gas Projects

Characteristics of oil and gas projects
Project versus programme management
Typical upstream, midstream, and downstream project environments
Engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning contexts
Major project stakeholders
Project complexity and sources of uncertainty
The project manager’s role across the lifecycle

2. The Oil & Gas Project Lifecycle

Project identification
Concept development
Feasibility and evaluation
Concept selection
Front-End Engineering Design (FEED)
Detailed engineering
Procurement
Construction and installation
Commissioning and start-up
Operations handover
Project close-out

3. Project Governance and Stage-Gate Decision Making

Project governance principles
Management decision points
Project sanctioning and approval
Investment decision requirements
Business case development
Project justification
Strategic alignment
Technical and commercial feasibility
Regulatory and compliance considerations

4. Building a Project Business Case

Business need
Project objectives
Expected benefits
Investment requirements
Alternatives and options
Financial considerations
Major risks
Expected returns
Strategic value
Project recommendation

5. Project Success and Failure

Success factors in oil and gas projects
Common causes of project failure
Poor scope definition
Unrealistic schedules
Weak project controls
Inadequate risk management
Communication failures
Stakeholder challenges
Cost escalation
Uncontrolled changes
Lessons from successful and underperforming projects

Practical Activity: Project Investment Decision

Participants evaluate a proposed oil and gas development scenario and determine whether it is sufficiently justified and prepared to move forward, considering strategic, technical, commercial, risk, and operational factors.

2

1. Establishing Project Requirements

Identifying project requirements
Understanding client and end-user expectations
Technical versus business requirements
Managing unclear or conflicting requirements
Requirements documentation
Requirement validation and approval

2. Defining Project Scope

Developing a project scope statement
Defining inclusions and exclusions
Deliverables and acceptance criteria
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Product breakdown and work packages
Scope boundaries
Scope creep and scope protection

3. Project Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder identification
Stakeholder influence and interest
Stakeholder mapping
Stakeholder expectations
Communication requirements
Managing difficult stakeholders
Client, contractor, and regulatory relationships
Stakeholder engagement planning

4. Project Organisation and Leadership

Project organisation structures
Roles and responsibilities
Project manager responsibilities
Project team composition
Responsibility assignment
Multidisciplinary team coordination
Leadership approaches
Motivation and team performance
Collaboration and accountability

5. Project Financial Fundamentals

Project economics
Capital expenditure and operating expenditure
Project funding considerations
Financing structures
Financial risk
Time value of money
Discounted cash flow concepts
Return on investment
Project value and financial decision-making

6. Project Communication & Governance

Communication planning
Management reporting
Project dashboards
Project meetings
Escalation procedures
Decision-making structures
Reporting to management and project boards

Practical Activity: Project Charter & Scope Workshop

Participants develop a project charter and preliminary scope for an oil and gas case study, including objectives, deliverables, stakeholders, success criteria, assumptions, constraints, and governance requirements.

3

1. Developing the Project Schedule

Principles of project scheduling
Activity identification
Activity sequencing
Dependencies and relationships
Network diagrams
Precedence relationships
Critical Path Method (CPM)
Total float and free float
Milestones
Schedule baseline
Gantt charts
Schedule monitoring

Practical Scheduling Exercise

Participants develop a simplified project network and identify critical activities, critical path, project duration, float, schedule constraints, and potential delay points.

2. Project Cost Planning and Control

Project cost structure
Cost estimating principles
Budget development
Cost baseline
Cost allocation
Cost forecasting
Contingency and management reserves
Cost monitoring
Cost variance
Cost escalation
Cost reporting

3. Contracting & Commercial Risk

Common oil and gas contract types
Lump-sum and fixed-price arrangements
Cost-reimbursable contracts
Unit-rate contracts
Risk allocation
Commercial implications of contract selection
Contractor performance considerations

4. Resource Management

Resource identification
Labour, equipment, and material requirements
Resource loading
Resource allocation
Resource constraints
Resource prioritisation
Managing scarce resources
Resource productivity
Balancing cost, time, and resource requirements

5. Project Risk Management

Risk versus issue
Risk management lifecycle
Risk identification
Risk categorisation
Risk registers
Probability and impact assessment
Qualitative risk analysis
Quantitative risk concepts
Risk ownership
Risk response strategies
Risk monitoring

Typical Oil & Gas Project Risks

Safety and HSE risks
Regulatory risks
Technical risks
Procurement risks
Contractor risks
Supply-chain disruptions
Cost escalation
Schedule delays
Equipment and material availability
Weather and environmental conditions
Community and stakeholder issues
Operational interface risks

Practical Activity: Oil & Gas Project Risk Workshop

Participants develop a project risk register, assess major exposures, assign risk ownership, and determine mitigation and contingency actions.

4

1. Managing Project Execution

Transitioning from planning to execution
Maintaining project governance
Monitoring deliverables
Coordinating contractors and internal teams
Managing interfaces
Progress measurement
Execution-stage decision making
Managing project priorities

2. Managing Change

Why project changes occur
Sources of project change
Change identification
Change evaluation
Change requests
Change approval
Impact assessment
Managing changes to scope, cost, and schedule
Preventing uncontrolled change
Configuration control

3. Project Performance Measurement

Performance indicators
Project dashboards
Progress measurement
Schedule performance
Cost performance
Forecasting
Variance analysis
Corrective action

Earned Value Management

Planned Value (PV)
Earned Value (EV)
Actual Cost (AC)
Schedule Variance (SV)
Cost Variance (CV)
Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
Cost Performance Index (CPI)
Forecasting project outcomes

4. Project Quality Management

Quality planning
Quality assurance
Quality control
Inspection and testing
Quality documentation
Non-conformance management
Corrective actions
Quality performance monitoring
Integrating quality into project execution

5. Project Recovery & Turnaround

Early warning indicators
Diagnosing project performance problems
Schedule slippage
Cost overruns
Resource constraints
Contractor underperformance
Recovery planning
Schedule compression
Resource optimisation
Prioritisation of critical activities
Corrective action plans
Recovery governance
Managing stakeholder confidence

Practical Activity: Project Recovery Simulation

Participants analyse a troubled-project scenario involving cost pressure, delays, resource constraints, and stakeholder expectations, then develop a practical recovery action plan.

6. Project Handover and Close-Out

Preparing for project completion
Completion criteria
Commissioning and handover interfaces
Handover requirements
Documentation and records
Outstanding work management
Final project reporting
Contract close-out
Financial close-out
Asset handover
Lessons learned
Post-project evaluation
Capturing organisational knowledge

This course includes

4+ Activity Modules
40 hours + lessons
Lifetime access
Certificate of completion
Available on desktop and mobile