Main Priorities in Project Management

In recent years, and especially in developing projects of South Pars, an increasing trend has been witnessed in applying project management knowledge in drilling projects. However, despite the fact that the drilling projects have high costs and are risky in comparison with other industries projects, they are in a poor condition in terms of an organization and implementation of the work. Taking care in the nine fields of project manage – ment including integration management, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk and preparatory, we find that with the imple – mentation, performance, control, and close moni – toring, the success of the project can be generally ensured. Lack of attention to the project manage – ment and even imperfect implementation of a project lead to forgetting some of the main pri – orities of the project in the thick of things which cause very bad effects, including the project bud – get deficit, delay in delivery, low-quality job, and ultimate defeat. One of the main challenges is the absence of the project–orientation in some of the government employer companies that do the jobs on the basis of the company’s internal mechanism and just in some developing specific fields as proj – ect-oriented entrust to the contractors. This causes associated manpower from the em – ployer and a contractor. Despite increased capa – bility and technical and operational experience, they do not earn the necessary skills to work on the team project, and when they enter the project system, they still want to work with their organi – zational culture. Shortage of professional manpower in manage – ment of drilling projects can be good for the im – plementation of the project management system and implementation of the project. This is one of the other challenges in this sector. We can also add companies’ senior managers’ be – lief to implement the project management system and give sufficient authority to project managers at the assigned responsibilities to other cases. By outsourcing the majority of things in the form of government project by employers, the above-mentioned challenges could be resolved. This makes the development of project-orient – ed culture, and manpower education in project management field can reduce the shortages. Par – ticipation of the local companies along with the prestigious foreign companies in exploration and development projects contributes tojob-training and transferring project management experience. One of the major issues that needs to be noticed among the top organizations’ managers is that it is not necessary for drilling project managers to be from drilling operations experienced men. (Project Management)Graduates could be proj – ect managers and benefit from operational and technical managers in advancement of the proj – ect. However, it is recommended that experi – enced people in engineering and drilling opera – tions be trained in project management field to earn skills, and competencies need to take this position.

This object is clearly visible in drilling proj – ect team of Western oil companies. Basically, admission of a drilling project manager with not-drilling basic expertise is very hard to a team, and a crisis will be in front of the project. The best and the most successful experience in using the knowledge of (project management) is membership in the drilling team of State-Oil Company in cooperation with Petro-Pars in de – velopment project for the 6th,the 7th, and the 8thphases in South Pars(2003-2006) in which professional mechanism was fully carried out in project management and successfully com – pleted. Afterwards, the purpose was to transfer the experience to the 12th phase of Petro-Pars project.

Thus, for providing integrated drilling services projects for IOOC (Iranian Offshore Oil Com – pany), a kind of project management system was implemented from 2010until2014 suc – cessfully so as to provide 14 types of drilling services with the logistics for more than 17 rigs in the vast area of the Persian-Gulf oilfields, from Hengaam to Bahregaan. This experience is now the main frame of provision in Mehran company’s supply system for employers.

Author: Mohammad Talebi