In Focus: P&T improvement programme

Competitive scoping

Wells for Stones project

We fundamentally redesigned the wells of the Stones deep-water project on the basis of drilling practices developed for onshore shale and tight sandstone formations. This allowed us to reduce the planned capital cost of the wells by more than 30%, as they now require fewer materials and can be installed at lower cost. We also reduced the overall project-delivery risk because the wells are now simpler to drill and complete.

Technology & Innovation

Shell ProjectVantage

The Shell ProjectVantage integrated engineering environment provides a suite of IT applications that aims to deliver safer, faster, better projects. It does this by adopting a data-centric, instead of the usual document-centric, approach. All the data related to a project – including equipment specifications, construction schedules and part numbers – are kept in a “cloud” database. This helps a project team to have access to up-to-date information all the time.

Efficient execution

Savings through logistics

Processes, standards and IT tools working in concert can cut out waste and eliminate duplication of effort. In the Gulf of Mexico, we recently saved $60 million by improving our logistics and materials management: how and when supplies are ordered and delivered to offshore platforms.

Supply-chain transformation

Integrated service contracts

The oil field services for our UK North Sea operations were recently unbundled and re-contracted with multiple parties, with a greater accountability for Shell. This change enables us to improve our integrated planning, scope control and commerciality, resulting in significant savings in the current business cycle.