Luc's missteps, however terrible, are not as big as Mulva's. One word - Burlington. Second word, Phillips 66.
As for Canadians working, 195183, you probably can't find Canada on a map. Canadians don't watch football on their office computer while their boss does the same at 7 pm on a weekday. Canadians love their families a lot more, and that is why they have less single mother families, and less divorces.
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful Canadian named Luc, big head, big gut, enormous ego. Really a nice guy too, had to go to China to find a wife that would have him, then he drove her insane, dumped her, and she had to sue him for her half of the money. Even Ryan Lance figured this guy out and ran him off, finally.
195183, You Americans... The only thing bigger than your egos are your stomachs.
Why? Have you ever seen a Canadian work? Nobody else has either.
This project had several reasons for cost over runs including but not limited to the following: They purchased a Gas Treatment plant that can not handle mercaptans and the gas they will be treating has mercaptans in it. This plant was made of stainless steel and will just sit there waiting to rust. They had to build a new plant that could treat this gas. Lets assume $500 million lost right there. I am not sure how much they spent on condensate return pumps in the field that can only handle clean condensate and in reality that condensate is far from clean. They have already had to rebuild 2 pumps and these pumps are straight from France.
As for sizing that was mentioned earlier this plant has 3 trains in it. Most of the equipment has been designed for approx. 36 000 bbl/day production, most of the equipment is similarly sized as any other facility. Therefore a pump purchased here would be similar to the one they would have bought for S1. Why they are F*ck ups is simple, build 3 separate plants one after another and you could have easily had train 1 (rename it S2) producing way earlier than actual first oil. Then build Train 2 (rename it S3) and so on after each other.
Another reason why they had so many cost over runs is because they hired Bantrel to be their CSU team. It is never in the best interests of the company (COP) to hire the builder to come in and do your commissioning. Bantrel wasted so many hours and made Millions by having this in the contract.
Why so many cost over runs, because it was mismanaged. The mismanagement has cost COP billions. You don't necessarily blame Bantrel they were given the green light by COP to waste billions and they did. And lets face it Ryan Lance (CEO) still has to make his US$ 27 000 000 bonus too, not to mention his US$15 000 000 million base salary.
And a good example of ConocoPhillips not functioning as a independent E&P with the go big or go home. The go big or go home limits the dynamics of the company. And more importantly the go big or go home limits the opportunities to learn from mistakes as mistakes are never admitted.
Fuhr, Dotson, and Bantrel...That is why! Nothing more to say.
An ideal size for a SAGD plant is 25,000 bpd to 50,000 bpd, in cost terms. Mulva said he wanted to go big or go home, so Surmont 2 went big. It's cost per barrel is about $100,000, compared to about $40,000 for the Cenovus projects. Also, every brilliant "improvement" was tried in Surmont 2, which ended up making all the equipment customized. Whereas the right driver would have have been to pick off-the-shelf standard sizes, and design the project accordingly. But Houston always felt they knew better. Finally, home office costs, which basically ballooned from $300 million to $1,000 million, was a large cause of the cost overrun. A large part of this cost was flying in expats from the US back and forth to Fort McMurray.
Being an ex employee (contractor), I don't really much give a crap. But since it's been brought up, Cenovus, Husky, Suncor and CNRL are not comparable projects. Surmont "2" was designed for a much larger production level, laying the groundwork for Surmont 3, 4, etc.. On an apples to apples basis, like cost per meter piping or cost per ton of steel, Surmont costs fell within single digit percentage points +- of the area average in the same time period. Also, COP spent an enormous amount of money for Safety measures, which showed in the record low TRR. Last point, even with the current cost and if S3 never goes forward, at full production and $45 USD for WTI, Surmont 2 will show a profit of about $10 - $15 per barrel depending on the WCS discount.
192219, I don't think that's correct Cenovus, Husky, Suncor, CNRL, etc are Canadians only and their projects cost significantly less.
Hahaha, you mean the Americans running it and making all the decisions?
Canadians