Petroperú hosted the Workshop on "Management of Major Refining and Surface Facilities Projects" organized by the Regional Association of Oil, Gas and Biofuels Sector Companies in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARPEL), through its Refining and Fuels Committee.

Prominent speakers of ENAP, UOP, IPA Inc., Repsol, YPFB, YPF, Pluspetrol, Petroperú, Honeywell, Minsur, TEMA, Techint and Williams Fire & Hazard Control participated in the event, which was held October 20 - 22.

In his welcome words, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Petroperú, Germán Velásquez Salazar, emphasized that on the date of the event, Petroperú had advanced more than 20% on the construction of the new Talara refinery. "This is a megaproject that will allow the expansion and modernization of the primary distillation unit, increasing its processing capacity from 65 to 95 thousand barrels per day, among other features," he said.

Regarding the importance of this type of ARPEL workshops, Velásquez mentioned three concepts: anticipation, contingency and affordance. The first concept refers to "the manager always considering the impact of management in the future" and hence the relevance of the contingency - defined as "an unwanted but predictable event" -, which is associated with surprises that may affect the success of a project. To deal with these contingencies, he mentioned the concept of affordance, as "the creation, innovation and development of new opportunities and new forms of success during the execution of our projects".

The Corporate Initiative Director of the consulting firm IPA Inc., Carlos Tapia, stated that "as the industry learned how to develop projects and understand the influence of management in the results, the management issue has gained more importance", and he added that in the past 20 years "companies were faced with the challenge of having to invest a lot of money, and in the end, big losses may occur if money is not properly managed".

"The Workshop reflects this need, what we are going to do with these projects that are still in the portfolio, as although the cycle of investment has fallen, there are still many companies in Latin America that will continue to invest in the development of refining projects. Major projects are going to continue, and therefore, companies in our region are more and more interested in understanding how to manage these projects for them to be completed in due time with the costs that we want, and to work properly," he said. 

Tapia said that "the value of management is actually much higher than the cost of management". "The effect of not managing the pre-execution phase is experienced during the execution, but then, things go so fast that many times we assume this effect as a natural part of the execution. However, our studies show that the largest percentage of changes that occur during the execution phase are due to things that we didn't do before," he concluded.

Meanwhile, the head of the Technical Directorate of Projects of ENAP, Mario Cuneo, argued that in the Chilean state company "there was a period of 10 to 15 years when we had to make a great adaptation of the facilities, both for capacity and for conversion, mainly due to the more stringent specifications of products of best quality, which led us to a quite ambitious investment program that extended for many years. It was not a mega-project by itself because it was carried out by stages. In the light of the discussion, I believe that at the end it was beneficial because it allowed us to manage it better, as we had a schedule, and the experience gained from one project was useful for the next one, due to a certain continuity of the work teams".

He added that "projects are increasingly complex, and what is currently required from a Unit in terms of security systems is much greater than what was required 15 years ago. You can contribute with the experience gained during a long project, and at the same gain experience from what you are doing now, because obviously challenges are still arising".

In regard to the future of refining in the region, Cuneo said that "we need to be dynamic and prepared to adapt to the changes that are occurring, more than trying to have certainty about what is going to happen".

The Workshop also benefited from the participation of the mining sector. The Director of Sustainability of the Peruvian company Minsur, Gonzalo Quijandría Fernández, said that "we have a challenge ahead: there are questions regarding the activity of the extractive industry, many of these referred to the lack of knowledge. We are always based in remote areas, so it is difficult for the public to know how we perform our activities, they know that we exist but not many people have visited a camp, a gas operation or a mine".

Quijandría Fernández stated: "Our approach at Minsur is inspired by the philosophy of Social Responsibility, which is based on generating effective relationships and includes risk management and social investment. The three aspects have to go hand in hand, sharing information in order to achieve an effective strategy".

The main issues of the Workshop on "Management of Major Refining and Surface Facilities Projects" held by ARPEL within the framework of its 50th anniversary were: Keys to successful capital investment in major projects and the special case of megaprojects; Projects under implementation; Project management problems; Personnel training; Relations with the community and the environment; Construction and process safety, and Precommissioning and start up.