With offices and partners spread across the world, BP's big offshore Claire project would be difficult to manage without the Internet.

As one of the largest oil exploration companies in the world, BP has interests in 25 countries through four divisions and has more than 10,000 employees. One of those divisions, BP Upstream in Aberdeen, is responsible for more than 40% of the total UK North Sea production.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a growing awareness among operators, contractors and the UK government that the current methods, practices and associated costs for North Sea developments required a radical review and overhaul. A toughening market and a focus on reducing costs meant change had to occur if the industry was to be capable of delivering future UK projects in an acceptable manner.

The Clair field

The Clair development on the UK Continental Shelf in the North Sea is a fixed platform in 500 ft (150 m) of water outfitted with an operating deck weighing 10,000 tons. It has a capacity of 60,000 b/d of oil, 100,000 b/d of water and 40 MMscf/d of gas lift compression. It combines best practices from the North Sea for its design and from the Gulf of Mexico for low-cost execution of a fit-for-purpose platform.

In October 2000, BP Upstream awarded contracts to Mustang Engineering and Noble Drilling, both based in Houston, Texas, for the front-end engineering and design (FEED) elements of the Clair project. This approach broke new ground within BP for UK-located projects. Particular attention was focused on topsides design, detailed engineering, project management and package fabrication to meet project objectives without compromising the reputation of BP and the other Clair partners.

"All in all, there were 150 people involved in the Clair project, with more than 100 of them needing to be in contact on a regular basis," said Graeme Hall, supply chain manager for the project. "We needed a system that would enable us to collaborate, discuss and share documents on a timely, worldwide basis, and we needed it now!"

The ProjectPlace solution

"Selecting a service was not an easy process, as a number of requirements needed to be satisfied," said Hall. "In previous projects, we had tried to use available applications such as e-mail and BP's intranet to enable collaboration, but they were far from suitable. Opening the intranet up to external organizations was deemed too much of a security risk, while e-mail failed miserably in trying to cope with the large files that needed to be shared [typically more than 20MB]. There was also no way of tracking the progress, which is so essential for successful project management."

Hall turned to his IT department for advice and it was on their recommendation that he chose ProjectPlace, a Web-based service with the functionality to provide project managers and all team members with the tools to run projects in an intuitive and wholly collaborative manner. Because it was accessible by project members anywhere, anytime, it was particularly attractive to the Clair project, where there was a need to work with geographically dispersed departments and external organizations. It also provided excellent security so the integrity of BP's internal networks could not be compromised, as can happen with an extranet.

As a pilot test, BP used ProjectPlace for the bid process for the Clair project. "It was a good test for security, as bidding is a highly secretive process," said Hall. "Satisfied with the results, we decided to go ahead and use it for the Clair project."

ASP business model attractive

Hall has found it a huge advantage to use an Application Services Provider (ASP), particularly as any future upgrades are performed automatically with no disruption. That way, new functionality is available to all users immediately. As an added bonus, the ASP model also means there is no capital investment.
"ProjectPlace has been designed to be intuitive - even people with limited PC knowledge can use it almost immediately. For those who were initially wary of it, a small amount of training got them up and running," said Hall. "One of the great advantages from a project management perspective is that all tasks are now so visible to the teams that an amount of peer pressure is generated. This means tasks happen on time as any lateness is immediately obvious to the project manager and others."

BP Upstream has been using ProjectPlace for 18 months now, and Hall is delighted with the results. Typical documents shared on ProjectPlace include planning information, design information, technical drawings, risk management data, technical data, plans and strategy documents. The tracking facility has also proved extremely useful.

"The thing I like about ProjectPlace is its simplicity and the fact that it is a global service," said Hall. "It is separate from BP's networks and allows any project members to access and communicate across what is in effect a global extranet."

The future

When pressed, Hall was apologetic but honest. "We originally used ProjectPlace because it was available immediately, had little overhead, and only costs us when we use it," he said. "It satisfied our needs, but the intention at the time was to use it, and then BP corporate would develop its own system for future projects. However, as we already have a number of people who are familiar with it and like it, and the cost is insignificant compared with actually developing, testing and implementing our own extranet - who knows? One thing I can say is that we tend to follow the most appropriate technology, and right now that is ProjectPlace."

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