Case Study
Delivering a Major Capital Project On Budget and On Schedule
Issue:
BP purchased the Whiting Refinery on the south side of Chicago and paid $4.2B to upgrade it to handle heavy oil sands crude. The refinery was rated at 425,000 barrels per day, but was producing at an average of only 385,000 due to equipment failures and downtime. Operations, Engineering and Maintenance were operating in silos with lots of missed opportunities.
Actions:
In concert with frontline leaders, we refined their management system and included intentional opportunities to collaborate on early indicators that Operations and Engineering were seeing. This positioned Maintenance to start doing more predictive maintenance and catch trouble early before it caused major delays. We then coached frontline leaders, helping them break bad habits and adopt new processes.
Results:
Operations, Engineering and Maintenance began working as one team. Onstream Availability climbed by 9%, while loss of primary containment (LOPC) dropped by 25% and Environmental Recordables by 42%. Throughput increased to a monthly average of 450,000 barrels per day for the next 12 months.
