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The drop in the price of crude oil has depressed margins to such an extent that oil and gas refiners have been forced to cancel, or at least put on hold, mega investment projects.
But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. Instead of mega projects, which have a world-scale capacity and come with a high price tag of several billion dollars, refiners should refocus on “Smart” projects instead.
At a time when budgets are tight, refinery managements will find that “Smart” projects will deliver a high return for relatively low investment. They can also help refiners to take advantage of the excess capacity within the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) fraternity, which had geared up to work on the mega projects.