Tri Ocean Engineering provides engineering, procurement, construction management and project management services to the drilling, production and midstream sectors of the international oil and gas industry

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Tri Ocean Engineering puts heavy emphasis on planning its projects to ensure it will be able to deliver quality engineering services on time and within budget to its customers, President Raul Alvarez says. “We are very focused on documenting and following our work processes,” he says. “We train our people and give them ownership of the processes,” he continues. “Ownership means that they can analyze and change them to make them better so that we can work more effectively.”

The Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based company provides engineering, procurement, construction management, project management, operations support, regulatory, conceptual studies and inspection services to the drilling, production and midstream sectors of the international oil and gas industry.

Industry leader
The company is “an industry leader in designing fit-for-purpose facilities for on-shore, off-shore and Arctic oil and gas developments,” the company says.

“Tri Ocean has the personnel and tools to efficiently execute oil and gas projects ranging up to $500 million total installed cost,” it adds.

Tri Ocean is owned by ASRC Energy Services (AES), which is based in Anchorage, Alaska. AES is itself owned by Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (ASRC), which is a private, for-profit, Alaska Native owned corporation representing the business interests of the Arctic Slope Inupiat.

Operational Excellence
Lack of resources is a major burden for companies in the oil and gas industry.    

“Given the extremely high level of activity in the Alberta oil and gas industry, availability of resources is a major constraint facing all engineering companies,” Alvarez says. “Many projects suffer from schedule delays and cost overruns.

“Our focus on processes and training allow us to bring new people into our organization very effectively,” he says. “This allows us to consistently complete our projects on budget and time – even in this market place.”   

The work processes, plus continuous improvement initiatives, are key elements of Tri Ocean Engineering’s award-winning Operational Excellence Program.

In October 2007, the National Quality Institute (NQI) of Canada recognized the company’s program with its Bronze Award of Excellence. The NQI awards are presented annually to organizations that have displayed outstanding performance in the areas of quality adjudicated against NQI’s Canadian Framework for Business Excellence.

Tri Ocean is the first engineering company to receive this recognition. Since 1984, the award has honored organizations considered to be world-class, Alvarez says. This prestigious award is Canada’s top recognition for organizational excellence.

The Governor General of Canada, Honourable Michaelle Jean, is the vice-regal patron for the program.  
The award is supported by the highest levels of the Canadian government including the Prime Minister, Alvarez adds.  

“Tri Ocean was also one of the first engineering companies in Alberta to obtain ISO 9001 certification,” Alvarez adds. The company has been certified since 1993. The certification proves the company is “committed to providing quality engineering and design services while ensuring the best value for our clients,” Tri Ocean says.

Project Management Process
One of the processes that the company is particularly proud of is its project management process. In support of this process, the company developed its own integrated project management tool called TriFinity Pro.

“Commercially available tools did not provide the flexibility and level of control that was required to consistently deliver projects on schedule and budget,” Alvarez says, which is why the company developed this product.

TriFinity Pro was developed over a number of years in consultation with project managers, engineering staff and clients, he says. It conforms to the Project Management Institute’s philosophies and industry practices.

The project management program is currently being used to manage over half a billion dollars of capital projects per year. The system is flexible and is used on projects with budgets ranging from a few million to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The TriFinity Pro tool includes functionality for: 

• WBS definition
• Man-hour estimates
• Deliverables progress measurement
• Earned value analysis
• Change identification, and approval /management
• Integrated reporting of cost and schedule

TriFinity Pro has been well tested on a variety of projects in terms of size, type and location, Alvarez adds. Similarly, TriFinity Pro is also well suited to all phases of projects, such as front end engineering and design, detailed engineering, support to fabrication and construction, commissioning and start-up, Alvarez adds.

“The overall system is integrated with engineering, procurement, and document control processes and workflows,” he says. “This results in good control of the project, maximizing efficiency and maintaining integrity in project design.”

Recent Projects
The company recently completed the front-end engineering and detail design for a modular oil processing facility on the North Slope of Alaska.  

The facility was designed to produce 30,000 barrels of oil per day. This was the first project it completed with sister company Omega, which handled the fabrication of the modules.

The modular facility, one of the company’s specialties, was completed in record time. The companies completed the design, fabrication and delivery of 114 modules, weighing 150 tons each, in 14 months – a North Slope record. “It was a remarkable achievement,” Alvarez says.

It also recently completed a waste-heat recovery, power-generation project involving a low-pressure steam turbine designed to produce 22 MW of electricity using waste steam from a gas plant in Alberta.

“The client’s intent was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he says.

Cost was a major concern for the $60 million project. It was also challenging because the equipment had to fit in a limited space within an operating gas plant.

“The main pieces of equipment that needed to be installed were a steam condenser which was about 300 feet long and eight stories high and a steam turbine which, by itself, was the size of a house,” he says.

“It was also technologically complex due to the extremely low steam pressure. The turbine was manufactured in Germany and had to be flown to Alberta in a Russian Antonov 124 100 aircraft in order to meet the tight project schedule,” he adds.

Growth Opportunities
While the majority of its work is in North America, Tri Ocean has completed projects, both offshore and onshore, in Russia, where it has an office, Europe, Australia and Africa.  

Currently, the company is looking to expand and develop offshore oil and gas projects in Central and South America, as well as open a new office in Trinidad and Tobago.

The company hopes to continue to meet customer expectations in terms of service while  pursuing opportunities to grow and develop.

“My vision is that we’ll stay on track with our operational excellence program, that we will continue to provide quality services to our clients and that we will be recognized for being the best in our market segments,” he says.

“We will continue to grow and improve,” Alvarez continues. “There are lots of opportunities for stable growth and development. We just have to keep our focus on providing quality and good value.”

Happy Employees
The company’s yearly employee survey, conducted by a third-party, proves they are “happy” to work there, Alvarez says. Employees also rank Tri Ocean above industry average in all categories. “Tri Ocean’s 300 employees help make the company an industry leader,” he adds.

A main reason the employee satisfaction rate is high is because the company respects its employees’ opinions and takes their input into account when developing corporate plans.

“They are happy to have involvement through this program,” Alvarez says. “I think that it’s important since the company also benefits.”  

For example, based on employee input, the company has implemented a green workplace initiative, enhanced its training programs, improved its benefits package, and revised its communication plan, Alvarez says.

Satisfied Clients
“Most importantly, our Operational Excellence Program results in satisfied clients,” Alvarez says. As part of the program, Tri Ocean conducts regular client satisfaction surveys, as well.  

Survey trends show continuous improvement with the company meeting or exceeding clients’ expectations in all areas of the survey for 2007, he says.�