Operator Organization for Managing and Integrating New Projects within an Existing Organization

Abstract

Total Oil Marine, in its role of operator for developments in the North Sea, has handled so far what is described as "Initial Projects", which means large projects where none of the installations existed before and where everything had to be organized and built from scratch. A typical example is the Frigg transportation system, consisting of a shore terminal, two 32" pipelines, a manifold compression platform and all the connections with the field production installations. The historical sequence of operations was design, procurement, construction, commissioning and start-upfollowed by permanent production operations. In this case, the entire organization required to deal with the problems was built around and with the project. Specific teams were set up, in a sequential mode, to follow the operations pattern until the end when construction teams were completely disbanded to be replaced by production teams. From then on, the operator organizes himself for permanent production problems, which become the key factor to select people and define the lines of authority. But new problems arise when additional installations have to be added to the existing ones, whilst production must continue without interruption. Design and construction teams begin to interfere with permanent operations people and have clearly different ideas about their respective roles. Experience indicates that the initial pattern of project organization can no longer be applied without running into a permanent conflict situation. Total Oil Marine has recognised this difficulty and has tried to introduce within its new projects organization a specific co-ordination and conflict solving role. The aim is to enforce compatibility between design, construction and production operations when they co-exist together with tight schedules. This paper describes how it is being achieved. It is divided into three parts: -The specific type of organization that did apply to initial projects.The short-comings of this type of organization and the new roles which are introduced.A New Projects typical organization set up to accommodate simultaneous design, construction and production operations under the operator'scontrol.