Delivering 100% Engineering and Supplier Information Handover on a $9.6B Offshore Mega Project

Sakhalin Phase II - When information volume becomes a project risk

Large offshore developments generate vast amounts of engineering and supplier information that must be gathered, validated and handed over to the owner/operator.

On Sakhalin Phase II, this included:

• 600,000 tagged equipment and material items
• ~5 million data attributes
• 400,000 engineering and supplier documents
• ~1.2 million document revisions

Combined with the project’s complexity and harsh build environment, this placed significant demands on AMEC and the other contractors involved

Poor collection, handling and dissemination of information was identified as a likely major impact on project execution — and experience had shown this to be a key cause of schedule and budget overruns.

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The Sakhalin Phase II Development

Sakhalin Phase II developed fields approximately 16km off the north-eastern coast of Sakhalin Island to deliver gas to the LNG plant developed in the previous phase.

It included:

• Two self-contained drilling, production, utilities and quarters platforms
  • Lunskoye-A (22,000 tonnes topsides)
  • Piltun-Astokhskoye (28,000 tonnes topsides)
• The first offshore project in Russia

Total project CAPEX was approximately $9.6 billion USD, with execution from 2003 to 2008. The Sharecat platform was used from 2003 to 2012

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Customers included:

• AMEC (EPC contractor)
• Samsung Heavy Industries (EPC contractor)
• Shell (owner/operator)

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A Common Digital Platform Across All Parties

The project required a way to collect and approve data and documents without repeating the challenges of earlier projects, particularly from the supply chain.

As stated by Chris Mitchell, AMEC Information Manager:

“Fundamentally our goal was to find a way to collect the data and documents without going through the pain of earlier projects… We chose the Sharecat SaaS platform to make the process of gathering and approving data and documents easier.”

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Arwin Zijl, Shell and SEIC Information Manager, added:

“Collecting and efficiently distributing data and information is always the most difficult part of any information gathering process, and also an area with potential for major improvement.”

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The Sharecat platform was applied as a common solution across:

• Engineering project offices
• Fabrication, installation and commissioning contractors
• Suppliers
• Owner/operator teams

This unified approach removed inefficiencies and improved collaboration

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Managing Information at Mega Scale

During Sakhalin Phase II, the platform supported:

• 2 EPC contractors
• 90 main equipment suppliers
• 220 main equipment purchase orders
• 400,000 engineering and supplier documents
• ~1.2 million document revisions
• 600,000 tagged equipment items
• ~5 million data attributes collected

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Platform functionality included:

• Document management, workflows and reviews
• Asset data & equipment registers
• SPIR handling & processing
• Reference Data Library / Class Library Management
• Automated tag & document numbering
• Product catalogue
• Reporting & analytics

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Measurable Impact

The Sakhalin II team reported significant measurable benefits:

• Close to 100% handover of engineering and supplier information
• ~5% savings in engineering and procurement manhours
• ~5% reduction in procurement CAPEX
• ~50% manhour savings in information management activities
• ~15% reduction in expediting and follow-up costs
• ~30% saving in spares inventory due to high-quality spares data
• Avoidance of a $6M USD change order by granting workspace access to a fabricator
• Elimination of up to 50% of document volumes requiring translation through automated data extraction and validation

Arwin Zijl summarised:

“Extending a common solution across engineering project offices; fabrication, installation and commissioning contractors; suppliers and owner/operator teams was very powerful. It removed a lot of inefficiencies.”

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The Power of the Product Catalogue

Sakhalin II made comprehensive use of the Sharecat product catalogue — an application enabling identification, storage and reuse of standard equipment information from suppliers.

Through data reuse and validation processes:

• An estimated additional 11% saving in information management manhours was achieved
• Access to standard equipment information supported earlier design completion

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As noted:

“I see huge benefits for us as an O&G company from collecting and sharing data we have gathered on projects like this, which we can then re-use on other projects.”
— Arwin Zijl

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Avoiding the Typical Spares Data Challenge

Spare parts are often not prioritised during execution but are critical for commissioning and operations.

Using dedicated SPIR handling capabilities, Sakhalin II:

• Collected all spares information at least 18 months ahead of start-up
• Built the correctly sized warehouse in time
• Achieved spares data completion for 100% of maintainable tags

Chris Mitchell noted that the quality of spares information on this project significantly surpassed previous projects

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Conclusion

Sakhalin Phase II demonstrates that on mega offshore projects, information management cannot be treated as a supporting function.

It must be:

• Structured
• Validated
• Collaborative
• Scalable
• Integrated across engineering, supply chain and operations

By applying a unified, cloud-based SaaS platform across all project participants, Sakhalin II achieved near-complete information handover, measurable cost savings and improved operational readiness on one of the largest offshore developments of its time

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