Australian player’s assistance to bring BP millions in savings

UK-headquartered energy giant BP has formed a strategic alliance with Australia’s engineering company Worley to streamline operations and improve organization across its global site projects.

The deal, described as the first time an alliance has been formed with BP’s operations business, is meant to improve capital efficiency in site projects, initially enabling savings of around $40 million over two years in locations where Worley operates as a contractor.

This includes the Gulf of Mexico, Oman, Mauritania, and Senegal oil and gas-producing regions, alongside the Cherry Point, Whiting, Rotterdam, Gelsenkirchen, and Lingen refineries.

Niall Maguire, BP’s Vice President (VP) of Site Projects, noted: “We remain focused on improving safety, reducing emissions, high value activity, and reducing cost. This alliance increases our operational effectiveness through centralization, standardization and simplification, helping us safely grow the value of bp.”

The two companies intend to optimize collaboration across site projects in a tight resource market by combining digital capability and global expertise to increase engineering, procurement, construction development, and management efficiencies.

“This alliance builds on our successful partnership in the Site Projects Efficiency Plan (SPEP) over the past two years where we’ve worked together to drive down costs across bp’s global operations. Our shared history and values position us well to identify and implement solutions as we continue to create value and deliver sustainable change throughout bp’s portfolio of projects,” said Mark Brantley, Worley’s Group President EMEA and APAC.

In January, Worley signed a five-year agreement to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) services covering BP’s global refinery assets and new energy portfolio.

Meanwhile, BP has been busy across the globe. While the firm’s joint venture (JV) with Eni, Azule Energy, awarded Aker Solutions with a long-term brownfield and modification frame agreement for two floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels in Angola, another FPSO reached the coasts of Mauritania and Senegal to start work on the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) Phase 1 liquefied natural gas (LNG) development project.

Last month, the energy major restarted oil production at its giant oilfield off the coast of Azerbaijan earlier than planned following maintenance works at one of the platforms. In North America, the company hired Seatrium to do early engineering works for its newbuild floating production unit (FPU) bound for a deepwater project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.