22
LNG
INDUSTRY
APRIL
2016
Early planning and development
In its early stages, implementation planning is connecting the dots
between the FERC DEIS/EA (which detail the draft conditions
that the project may receive in its permit), the requirements of the
EPC contract, and the EPC contractor’s construction schedule.
Ideally, the developers will put together an implementation
plan (IP) team consisting of representatives from the developer,
the EPC contractor, legal counsel, those knowledgeable about
environmental aspects and the engineering design of the project,
and those knowledgeable of the permitting effort and future
permitting requirements for the project. The goals for the IP team
should be as follows:
Identify all permits and approvals and the associated
processes that must be followed to obtain such permits and
approvals.
Ensure the project properly plans in advance for all federal,
state, and local requirements and inspections.
Ensure the project complies with all federal, state, and local
permits.
Ensure the project does not sustain any delays in approvals for
construction, which will result in impacts to the construction
schedule and associated construction cost.
Ensure the project fully understands all engineering design
requirements that were incorporated into the permitted
design or imposed as conditions to the design.
Ensure the project has a fully developed implementation plan
for the execution phase of the project.
Implementation planning is usually first started in a workshop
with the IP team following a generic sequence:
Firstly, the IP teambreaks down all of the FERC DEIS
conditions to understand what the requirements of each
condition are and who will be responsible for clearing each
condition. This will include identifying the information that will
be required from the EPC contractor to satisfy each condition,
and what work activities will be predicated on FERC clearing
each condition.
The IP teamwill start to strategise a plan for resolving any
issues that may be found to surround DEIS conditions. For
example:
Any conditions that may be impractical to achieve within
the timeframe required by FERC.
Any conditions that may pose unintended safety, reliability,
operability, or maintenance concerns.
Any condition that may be satisfied by an equivalent
mechanismother than as prescribed in the DEIS/EA.
Next, the IP teambreaks down the EPC contractor schedule
to identify ‘packages’ (or ‘work scopes’) for construction
sequences and identifies the applicable FERC conditions
associated with each ‘package’ and the necessary engineering
design information to clear each condition.
Then, the IP team reviews the EPC contractor’s schedule for
producing this information and estimates the timeframe for
FERC to review this information and issue data requests.
The teamestimates the timeframe to respond to these
data requests and eventually authorise construction of the
package, and compares when the EPC contractor needs
to start construction on that package to ensure that there
is acceptable alignment between the schedule to produce
the engineering designmaterials and when authorisation is
needed to construct.
Finally, if there is acceptable schedule alignment, then the
IP teamputs together an executable package. If there is not
acceptable schedule alignment, then an iterative process is
taken where changes aremade until alignment is met. These
changes can include dividing the work package into separate
parts to better match engineering vs construction schedules,
re-visitation of engineering schedules to see if engineering can
be accelerated, or re-visitation of construction schedules to
validate construction ‘need-by’ dates.
Ideally, the IP teamwill develop the following:
An initial implementation plan with a strategy on how the
project is going to incorporate all permit conditions into the
execution phase.
Initial definition around all initial site preparation packages.
Initial definition around all early construction packages, with
a good framework in place to help define future construction
packages, recognising that overall schedules often change.
Construction package
development
Essentially, all initial site preparation and construction packages
contain the following core components:
A description of the scope of work being requested for
approval for construction.
Identification of all of the conditions in the order that are
applicable to the scope of work being requested.
All necessary engineering design information required to
satisfy the conditions associated with the scope of work and
any additional information necessary to support any changes
or deviations from information originally submitted to FERC
associated with the scope of work.
Figure 2.
Initial site preparation. Image courtesy of
Freeport LNG Development L.P.
