PMOz Book of Abstracts (Sept. 2013) (Sept. 2013) | Page 40

Wednesday, 18 September 2013 14:15 – 14:45
A Probabilistic Approach to Time & Cost Planning of Oil & Gas Exploration in Papa New Guinea Colin Cropley Managing Director, Risk Integration Management Pty Ltd (RIMPL)

Talisman Energy (TE), a global oil & gas explorer has been exploring the Western Province of Papua New Guinea with its JV partners since 2009. TENL, its PNG subsidiary has participated in several gas discoveries and plans a continuing seismic and drilling program through to 2015 to develop reserves for an LNG project. Exploration work in the Western Province is challenging, with large distances, difficult terrain and virgin forests. Transportation by river and helicopter is a necessity. Up to 10 metres of rain falls over nine months of the year in the northern Forelands region of the licence areas. Deterministic planning and estimating in this environment have previously led to optimistic schedules and cost estimates that were not achieved. The quantitative risk analysis team of Risk Integration Management Pty Ltd (RIMPL) offered their Monte Carlo Method based Integrated Cost & Schedule Risk Analysis (IRA) methods to TE, who adapted the approach to develop “unit operations” for the following exploration activities: • Seismic survey; • Drilling; • Site preparation and Well Pad construction; and • Moving the Drilling Rig; plus joining of the probabilistic Unit Operations together. By thoroughly examining each of these steps for time and cost uncertainties and mapping risk events into each schedule, realistic time and cost distributions were able to be produced and drivers of time and cost identified for risk optimisation. And by linking each repetitive set of discipline activities at several probabilistic levels, gaps due to resource bottlenecks appeared, enabling their resolution to minimise delays and costs. Actual outcomes achieved by Talisman compared with probabilistic forecasts have confirmed the value of this approach.

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