Research Background:
Nowadays, it has been imperative for all the business firms to execute innovative strategies and tactic to ensure a long term success in the industry and enhance annual revenue. When a firm imposes new and innovative practices in any area or in any project, it has to face several difficulties and challenges. In the oil and gas industry, due to the highly unpredictable environment, it has become difficult for the companies to execute various strategies and actions as it leads higher risk of failure of the projects (Shuen, Feiler & Teece, 2014). According to Skogdalen and Vinnem (2012) due to unstable environment and volatile prices of the commodity in the oil and gas industry, it is really difficult for the firms to rely on single strategies and projects. Differences in the change rates and several safety issues increase the extent of risk for the workers in the workplace.
Along with this, it is really important for the companies in the oil and gas industry to focus on the different issues like pollution, workplace accidents, plants and environmental issues, political interruption, etc. The Oil and Gas Industry have a complicated business environment, where several political, economical and environmental regulations are imposed. Risks in the oil and gas industry often causes high time and high cost of the project, which eventually make it difficult for the stakeholders to get desired outcomes and benefits (Yusuf, et al., 2014).
According to Shuen, Feiler & Teece (2014), in a struggling economy, the oil and gas industry, the companies require effective management in order to ensure the successful running. Therefore, it is imperative for the oil and gas companies to execute different risk management strategies to manage unpredictable and environment and volatile in prices to maintain profitability. The risk management practices also essential to ensure the success of the project and maintain the operating cost as low as possible.
Research Aim:
The aim of this research proposal will be to critically evaluate the risks available in the project management process of the oils and gas industry based on my hands-on experiences in different projects and to evaluate the various methods and strategies to overcome these risks. This study will have a mail to explore a wide range of solutions and practices for the effective management of risk in Oil & Gas.
Research Questions:
In order to focus on aim of the study, the researcher will answer several questions in this study, which are as follows:
1. What is the project risk management and why it is essential for a firm?
2. Why is it important to identify different risks in different projects?
3. What are the different risk management approaches to handle project risks in the oil and gas industry?
4. At what extent, these approaches are significant to manage the identified risk in the projects of oil and gas industry.
Research Objectives:
As the aim of this study is to identify the significance of project risk management strategies in the oil and gas industry, following research objectives will be understand by the researcher to explore valid outcome and answer the research problem in an effective manner.
To critically evaluate the various risks associated with the different projects in the oil and gas industry.
To analyze the role of risk management practices in projects of oil & gas industry.
To explore different benefits and importance of the risk management approaches to the project of oil and gas industry.
To determine different challenges and issues to implement different risk management practices in the firm, mainly in the oil & gas industry.
To propose different alternative solutions to manage the challenges of the risk management and successfully execute the project in oil & gas industry.
Feasibility of the Study:
The feasibility of this research study is associated with the requirements of my efforts to gather authenticate and credible data and information. The information about the risk management practices is available in a wide range of literature reviews and academic sources. This study will be feasible for me because I can manage all the required resources to gather primary and secondary information. Managing risk in the projects is a business and social issue, which affects changes in the environment of oil and gas industry.
I will access the information about risk management practices from the university library, through different search engines, news articles and company annual reports. There will no need of a huge budget to gather data from secondary and primary sources and I have adequate time to organize a credible study.
References:
Shuen, A., Feiler, P.F. & Teece, D.J. (2014) Dynamic capabilities in the upstream oil and gas sector: managing next generation competition. Energy Strategy Reviews, 3, pp.5-13.
Skogdalen, J.E. and Vinnem, J.E. (2012) Quantitative risk analysis of oil and gas drilling, using Deepwater Horizon as case study. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 100, pp.58-66.
Yusuf, Y.Y., Gunasekaran, A., Musa, A., Dauda, M., El-Berishy, N.M. & Cang, S. (2014) A relational study of supply chain agility, competitiveness and business performance in the oil and gas industry. International Journal of Production Economics, 147, pp.531-543.
