While safety and profitability will always remain the top priorities for oil & gas capital project evaluations, new criteria must also be considered. Intensifying decarbonisation pressures and innovation in digitalisation are changing the way oil & gas companies operate, therefore they must be incorporated as capital project evaluation criteria to minimise risk of stranded assets. Considering the typical plant life cycle of 20-30 years and its operation, how should we transform capital project evaluation (typically based on cost & fixed oil price)?

The futureproof plant must be safe, profitable and sustainable. We will look at some of the changing requirements like shorter time to ROI and impact on design and engineering, project cost and execution, process electrification, decarbonisation, remote operations, energy efficiency, asset management, value chain optimisation, cybersecurity etc. With digital tools, system innovations, and new commercial models, we see the opportunity to enable better decisions for capital investments which are best for the business over the entire life cycle of the assets. Process automation and energy management should be considered as critical functions at the heart of your investment, and decisions can be taken in a way to better ensure the most sustainable business performance over the life of your assets.