AP-Canada Announces Phase Two Oil Sands Turnaround Cost Performance Benchmarking Study
(PRWEB) June 02, 2015 -- Asset Performance Canada (AP-Canada) has announced the second iteration of their Oil Sands Turnaround Cost Performance Benchmarking Study. Like the original study, this Phase Two effort will isolate controllable and uncontrollable cost drivers for turnarounds executed in the Alberta Oil Sands, while identifying practices that lead to best-in-class outcomes. The study will take advantage of a more robust data set, and will seek to build on the discoveries made in the Phase One study. AP-Canada is currently accepting sponsors to participate in the study, which is set to kick off later this year.
With the rapid decline in the price of oil in late 2014, Oil Sands facilities have focused their efforts on tightly managing expenditures. Turnarounds are the most resource intensive challenge that Oil Sands facilities face today—in terms of both financial resources and human resources. As such, turnarounds have been brought to the forefront as a major competitive factor contributing to maintenance expenses and lost revenue opportunities. This study will compare Oil Sands turnarounds to those executed in the rest of Alberta and in the US Gulf Coast in order to gain insight into the unique factors influencing turnaround efficiency and cost growth in the Oil Sands.
By examining quantitative performance measures such as time, money, and labor hours expended, as well as qualitative performance measures such as date of scope freeze and capital/maintenance integration, the study will focus on practices that are associated with superior turnaround performance. AP-Canada will provide sponsors with actionable recommendations based on the study findings.
AP-Canada has been able to debunk the myth that Oil Sands turnarounds are inherently more dangerous than Industry norms, confirming instead that safety performance in the Oil Sands is quite high. The firm’s Phase One study also revealed that while productivity is low in the Oil Sands compared with other regions, many of the factors contributing to this low productivity are manageable. The Phase Two study will look at the estimating practices and planning standards of the turnarounds submitted for analysis in order to build on these conclusions.
AP-Canada has been actively consulting on and collecting data from Oil Sands turnarounds for ten years—longer than any other firm in Industry. This robust data set underlies all of the company’s benchmarking efforts, and will form the backbone of the study results.
The Oil Sands Turnaround Cost Performance Benchmarking Study will kick off in the fall of this year. Interested companies should contact Mike O’Kane, Managing Director of AP-Canada, for more details at [email protected].
About Asset Performance Canada
Asset Performance Canada, an affiliate of Asset Performance Networks, is the trusted leader for improving asset and operational performance in petroleum, chemical, and energy companies throughout Canada. The firm’s solutions are a powerful hybrid of Software as a Service (SaaS) and consulting expertise that generates measurable results. Since AP-Canada was founded, the company has focused on bringing predictability and competitiveness to high-risk events—namely, capital projects and turnarounds. Industry leaders not only recognize the Asset Performance brand, they insist on the company’s involvement in their most critical improvement initiatives. For more information on AP-Canada, please visit http://www.ap-canada.ca.
Nick Mercurio, Asset Performance Networks, LLC, http://www.ap-networks.com, +1 240-683-1001, [email protected]
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