Specialist P&T teams manage complex mega projects from concept to commission, often in challenging environments. Our Cardamom field in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, sits under more than 800 m of water and another 7,600 m of rock, and is expected to produce 50 thousand boe/d. Our massive Prelude floating facility is expected to produce, liquefy, store and offload 110 thousand boe/d of Australian natural gas entirely out of sight of land.
Shell’s growth profile has recently been dominated by three large upstream projects: Pearl GTL, Qatargas 4 and the Athabasca Oil Sands Project expansion. Despite their particular environmental and engineering challenges, they have all been successfully delivered and are now on-stream.
P&T teams also undertake downstream projects. At several refineries around the globe they have implemented technology that improves the refinery’s efficiency and enables it to use a wider range of feedstock. In Port Arthur, Texas, for instance, an expansion project will turn the refinery there into the largest in North America. P&T also works with local teams to deliver more routine projects that require extra support or expertise.
We are constantly looking for opportunities to simplify and standardise project execution, with the aim of improving efficiency and reducing costs. In 2011, Shell created a global community of project managers to facilitate resourcing and build up expertise through the sharing of best practices. The Shell Project Academy invigorates this global community. It provides an accredited competence development programme that makes our project staff capable of delivering sustained top-quartile performance.
