According to Decie Autin, vice president of central project management for ExxonMobil, the dual challenge of meeting the demands of a growing global middle class as well as reducing harmful emissions can be achieved through the oil and gas industry's implementation of megaprojects.
"Hopefully, we recognize the value of our projects and what we're trying to do to make sure this dual challenge is met - that we can provide energy worldwide while reducing our carbon footprint," she said. "Megaprojects are critical to that."
Collaboration and integration across stakeholders and supply chains are crucial to the actualization of these megaprojects, Autin added.
"A one-team approach is essential to integrate stakeholders and supply chains especially [when executing] very complex projects," she said recently at the 23rd World Petroleum Congress in Houston. "All the technology advancements, productivity improvements and execution enhancements will not yield transformational change without highly integrated and collaborative teams. With projects of unprecedented complexity and financial risks now being routine, we cannot continue this approach by owners of handing off work to contractors, subcontractors and suppliers."
Another significant challenge facing the capital projects business is transparency of business risks - risks in execution, procurement and market conditions, Autin said.
"And those are just a few," she said. "When these risks are not fully understood but assumed by one party who may not be able to effectively manage them, it can result in dramatic impacts to the company. We need a better way."
Autin said the one-team approach leverages collaboration throughout the project's development to fully benefit from each party's "unique and additive expertise" and to ensure all voices are heard.
"We have seen this come together most recently in our Gulf Coast joint venture project. It's delivering industry-leading project performance both in cost and execution," she said.
ExxonMobil and Saudi Basics Industries Corp. together created Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC (GCGV), a joint venture in the construction of a plastics manufacturing facility. The project received final environmental regulatory approval in June 2019 to build an ethane steam cracker, two polyethylene units and a monoethylene glycol unit.
"The project is almost complete, and we'll be starting it up soon," Autin said. "They've done this without a single lost time or injury [incident] across 21 million manhours. That's a significant accomplishment.
"The team has really shown a one-team approach. Everyone is committed to the same objectives and truly came to win. GCGV focused on the possibilities, as opposed to focusing on 'How can I do this predictively and just repeat what I've done before?' They've allowed every stakeholder to lay [their cards] on the table, be transparent and provide true transformational leadership."
Autin explained stakeholders aligned their GCGV vision by coming together and literally developing a vision wheel.
"They put their mission in the center and the key principles that would bring them to their mission as the spokes," Autin explained. "Then, they made this wheel very visible across all of the sites and used it in all of their daily reporting and all of the progress reporting. It really helped keep everybody focused on what's critical to this project."
Amy Chronis, Houston managing partner with Deloitte LLP, said she is "highly optimistic" about the partnership of technology and industry experience to create a valuable and viable solution for plastic waste.
"Despite the major complexities for developing, funding and bringing megaprojects on line, I hope new and innovative projects with a variety of integrated approaches are good indicators of how, once again, this sector is showing how capable it is at transforming and powering progress."
Megaprojects are critical to advance a lower-carbon world, "and this sector has the innovation, technology and skills to continue to power [that] progress," Chronis concluded.
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