Rationalising work

An extensive restructuring of the operations organisation and production philosophy was implemented from the autumn of 1997 under the Future Operations (FutOp) project.[REMOVE]Fotnote: Hansen, Christian: From a Chinese Butterfly to Nails. Paper at the 23rd World Gas Conference, Amsterdam, 2006.Klikk her for å endre…

This work was pursued as a “total concept” project, where all aspects of field operation were subject to a very detailed evaluation in order to optimise them and to assess their interaction. FutOp was carried out by Elf’s own organisation, with extensive use of technicians on land. All preventive maintenance was subject to a critical evaluation on the basis of health, safety and environment (HSE) considerations, production staffing and consequent costs. This in turn resulted in a 41 per cent reduction in the maintenance programme.

An assessment of corrective maintenance showed that only 10-15 per cent of damage/faults were so critical for continued operation that they needed to be repaired immediately. The remainder could wait until a specialist campaign team was mobilised, with better planning and spare parts. Detailed availability models were run together against the new maintenance and operations philosophy. Combined with a thoroughgoing critical assessment of everything the organisation did, the outcome was a completely new organisational model. This involved a flatter structure, elimination of middle managers and the establishment of multiskilled teams with extensive self-management and responsibility.

Following the reorganisation, production became profitable at a level as low as one million cubic metres of gas per day. At peak, daily output was 80 times higher. Operating costs were reduced by about 40 per cent compared with the beginning of the 1990s.