The Analysis of Factors Influencing Costs Deviations of Oil and Gas Projects

The master thesis is relevant due to the necessity of increasing the economic efficiency of oil and gas investment projects delivered in tough market, economic, financial, natural, technical, and other conditions. The efficiency of projects can be increased by the assessment of costs stated in the project documentation taking into account possible deviations and the factors influencing them. One of the ways to increase the project efficiency is to analyze the causes and project features that affect deviations of the estimated costs. There are some main issues of the work: 1) the methodological approach dedicated to the factor analysis of cost deviations of oil and gas investment projects is developed and tested; 2) the classification of the reasons of cost deviations of oil and gas investment projects is developed; 3) the standard list of proactive measures aimed at decreasing the projects cost deviations is defined; 4) the organizational scheme of stakeholders interaction while monitoring the investment projects deviations is suggested. The use of the methodological approach will allow not only to determine the causes and project features that significantly affect deviations of the estimated costs, but also to rationalize the choice of proactive measures after monitoring the projects costs deviations. Consequently, taking the rationalized proactive measures will contribute to increase the planning accuracy by means of transferring the part of unforeseen costs to expected costs and to decrease the value and frequency of future projects costs deviations.