Engineering Consulting Services for Industrial Infrastructure
Cost Reduction
In an increasingly challenging market beset by commodity price volatility, oil and gas companies insist on lowering project execution costs. Several clients have turned to Vista over the years for consultation on how to best implement cost-saving initiatives.
Vista, a full-service engineering, procurement and project management firm focused on Western Canada’s energy sector, has provided cost-effective engineering solutions to clients for over 30 years. Our approach is based on doing what is best for the long-term cost of the facility and focuses on integrating modern technology with project management innovation.
Some of the areas Vista provides strategic cost reduction consulting include:
Fit-For-Purpose Specifications
A project’s technical specifications define the requirements for materials, instruments, services and design factors. Each of these, directly and indirectly, impacts the cost of procuring materials and of designing the facility.
Most industry specifications were developed during a healthier energy market in which procuring higher-priced equipment could be justified in the name of greater duty ratings. Consequently, these specifications are “gold plated” – that is, overly robust in a challenging cost environment.
Aimed at eliminating excessive design and duty margins to enable the procurement of lower-cost equipment and materials, Vista has developed a full suite of oil and gas equipment and design specifications optimized for the current economic environment.
Modularization Optimization
The principle of modularization involves fabricating equipment and structures off-site and maximizing the amount of assembly and construction pre-work performed in the shop rather than in the field. Through our major capital CPF development projects, Vista has learned that optimizing modularization is an effective strategy for reducing cost and accelerating the schedule. It also provides significant safety and quality benefits.
When paired with other cost-reduction strategies, Vista is able to make early project development decisions to maximize equipment and structural modularization. Plot Plan Compression
Minimizing the physical area occupied by a facility can have a significant impact on its overall cost. Drawing on decades of experience designing greenfield facilities, Vista is able to not only compress the footprint of the plant, saving on materials and labour, but to optimize its layout for production processes.
The key is to develop a plot plan that is compact but that still has adequate space for construction and operations. The site space itself should be minimized to limit extensive earthwork requirements. In designing a compact layout to reduce the physical size of the plant and to minimize piping, racks and other material quantities, attention must be paid to regulatory spacing guidelines, equipment spacing specifications, and optimizing berm containment.