The development of an appropriate project life cycle in the oil and gas industry depends on the implementation of stages that should be completed to guarantee the project realization (Davidsen, Sterman, and Richardson, 1990; Key concept overview, 2015). These stages present the fundament for the development of the appropriate work breakdown structure (WBS) (Berends, 2007). To propose the high-level WBS for the Horse Hill Project developed by UK Oil & Gas (UKOG), it is important to concentrate on the following stages that are identified by US Department of Energy (2012) as important for the project implementation: Design and Engineering, Project Administration, Facilities and Equipment, Operations, Evaluation, and Safety and Testing. Figure 1 presents the WBS developed for the Horse Hill Project concerning these stages.
The proposed WBS is appropriate to describe the work and activities associated with the realization of the Horse Hill Project (Key concept overview, 2015). This project summary includes two levels, and it also lists the main components that are related to the identified six areas or stages. Design and Engineering is an important stage at which professionals develop plans for organizing the exploration and drilling activities (US Department of Energy, 2012). Project Administration is related to the coordination of the Horse Hill Project in terms of providing the required control, planning, and estimation of costs that are necessary for realizing drilling, managing facilities constructed at the site, and realizing the technical management to monitor horizontal drilling (Key concept overview, 2015).
Facilities and Equipment is an area that should be determined to identify managers responsible for the organization of the work at the site in terms of providing the necessary equipment (US Department of Energy, 2012). Operations should also be determined as a separate area because of the necessity to organize and monitor employees, construction, and drilling operations (Davidsen, Sterman, and Richardson, 1990). However, the quality of the planned activities depends on the appropriate evaluation. Therefore, one more stage is identified to be included in the WBS. At this stage, supervisors and managers assess and evaluate the results of drilling activities to conclude regarding the continuation of exploration in the region (Berends, 2007). Safety and Testing are important to be determined as a stage to monitor and predict risks associated with the planned and realized activities (US Department of Energy, 2012). To schedule activities depending on the proposed WBS, it is necessary to use the Gantt chart and other scheduling techniques (Gantt.com, 2015; Vaquero et al., 2009).
Reference List
Berends, K. (2007) ‘Engineering and construction projects for oil and gas processing facilities: Contracting, uncertainty and the economics of information’, Energy Policy, 35(8), pp. 4260-4270.
Davidsen, P., Sterman, J. and Richardson, G. (1990) ‘A petroleum life cycle model for the United States with endogenous technology, exploration, recovery, and demand’, System Dynamics Review, 6(1), pp. 66-93.
Gantt.com. (2015) What is a Gantt chart? Web.
Key concept overview: oil and gas project portfolios (2015) Liverpool: Laureate Education, Inc.
US Department of Energy. (2012) Work breakdown structure handbook. Web.
Vaquero, T. S., Sette, F., Silva, J. R. and Beck, J. C. (2009) ‘Planning and scheduling of crude oil distribution in a petroleum plant’, Proceedings of the ICAPS 2009 Scheduling and Planning Applications woRKshop (SPARK). Web.