Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry

1.3.3 FEED (Preliminary) Engineering
This stage is the second phase after the completion of the feasibility study 
for a project.
This phase of preliminary engineering studies, which is known as feed 
engineering, is not less important than the first phase.
This phase of engineering is one of the most important and most dan-
gerous stages of engineering and the professionalism of the project since 
the success of the project as a whole depends on the engineering study in 
this phase.
Therefore, as this stage is vital, the engineering consultancy firm that 
performs this study should have strong experience in these types of 
projects.
For example, a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project is a type of project 
that needs an experienced office. Another example would be offshore proj-
ects that use FPSO and that also need a special consulting office that has 
worked on this type of project before.
In the case of small projects, such as residential or administrative 
buildings or a small factory, the phase of feed engineering is to deliver 

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Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
the type of structure, whether it would be a steel or concrete structure. If 
a concrete structure is decided, the engineer should define it as a pre-cast 
concrete, pre-stress concrete, or normal concrete and then determine the 
type of slab structure system as a solid slab, flat slab, hollow blocks, or 
others.
Also, this phase defines the location of the columns and the structure 
system and if it will use a frame or shear wall for a high-rise building.
In summary, the preliminary engineering is to provide a comparison 
between these alternatives and the variation depending on the size of the 
building itself and the requirements of the owner. The reasonable structure 
system and similar mechanical or electrical system will be selected, so this 
stage is called a select phase.
In the case of major projects, such as a petrochemical plants or new plat-
forms, there will be other studies in this stage such as geotechnical studies, 
met ocean studies, seismic studies, and environmental studies.
The main element of this study is to provide the layout depending on the 
road design, location of the building, and hazard area classification in the 
petroleum projects.
Moreover, it needs to select the foundation type, if it is a shallow founda-
tion or driven or rotary piles based on the geotechnical studies.
In case of oil and gas projects, we need to carefully study the mode of 
transfers and trade-offs of the product and select the appropriate methods 
of transferring between the available alternatives options.
Now, it is clear that, as a result of the seriousness of that stage and the 
need for extensive experience, in the case of large projects, the owner 
should have competent engineers and an administrative organization that 
have the ability to follow up on initial studies in order to achieve the goal of 
the project and coordination between the various project disciplines, such 
as civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical, as all the disciplines usually 
intersect at this stage.
Generally, regardless of the size of the project, the owner must prepare 
the Statement Of Requirement (SOR) document during the preparation 
of engineering requirements. The SOR will be a complete document con-
taining all the owner information and needs to be about the project with 
high accuracy and contain the objective of the project and the needs of the 
owner precisely and identify the scope of work (SOW).
This document is a start-up phase of the mission documents quality 
assurance system, as this document must contain all that is requested by 
the owner. The SOR document must outline the whole project and have a 
document containing all particulars of the project and its objectives and 
proposals and the required specifications of the owner.

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How to Manage Oil and Gas Projects 13