Budgeting and controlling investment costs for Latin American oil & gas projects can be particularly tricky. If investors and owners don’t use reliable information in negotiating with EPCs and equipment suppliers, their projects may suffer from a proliferation of risk buffers and safety margins that cumulatively make them unviable. Or, even worse, they may proceed with the projects and then suffer financially disastrous cost overruns.
Costs vary widely across Latin America, and between Latin America and other regions. Labor costs, third country national participation, and local employee benefit adders are particular to each country. Local productivity differentials, local content requirements, and union regulations together can double or even triple project costs. Steel costs vary widely due to volatile demand and limited supply. Fuel costs are subsidized in some countries and not in others. Finally, high payment risks, the chance of expropriation, hyperinflation, and economic volatility affect terms and conditions of contracting.
Projects like Sea Lion, a joint venture of Premier Oil (60%) and Rockhopper (40%), in Argentina, exemplify the need for supplementary and more methodical cost benchmarking, value chain engineering, tender design, and supplier negotiation. The total capital estimate ($5 billion) is making it hard to fund this project. In addition, Sea Lion’s project budget is fluid and has wide variances: the pre-FEED study on the FPSO plan suggested a required investment of approximately $7b, while new estimates come closer to $5.2 billion.
In order to assure project viability investors in Latin American oil and gas ventures need to access equivalency costs for similar investments in other regions, tapping into specialized expertise if necessary to accurately forecast and mitigate financial and strategic supply chain risks.