Baker & O'Brien Releases Q1 2019 Edition of Energy Expert Newsletter

May 13, 2019

This quarter’s Energy Expert newsletter profiles several of Baker & O’Brien’s recent engagements that we hope you will find interesting and thought-provoking:

 

• In our first article,  Don Flessner and Homero Russares discuss the project management complexities and challenges surrounding the conversion of an oil tanker to a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel.  In a dispute over late completion and cost overruns, Baker & O’Brien was retained to investigate the issues that could affect delivery including original engineering design and design changes.  We reviewed the 3-D model for the conversion project, changes to equipment specifications, and evaluated fabrication activities to develop our expert opinion, which was defended in expert testimony.

 

• “Mothballing”—the practice of preserving and maintaining process equipment during an extended outage—can significantly impact the cost efficient and effective resumption of operations.  Dave Morgan presents an insurance dispute regarding repair costs following a plant explosion: which costs were directly attributable to the incident, and which may have been related to inadequate mothballing?  Our expert report addressed the adequacy of the mothballing and its influence on equipment condition at restart, and these effects on the amount of the claim.

 

• We close with a story by Daniel Finelt on how a Linear Program (LP) was submitted by a refiner to support a business interruption insurance claim after a process unit fire.  LP models are used extensively in refineries to optimize feed slate in order to meet anticipated market demand, which require specialty knowledge of plant configuration and production capability.  Baker & O’Brien’s expertise with refinery LP models was an essential factor in analyzing the claim and preparing an expert report.

 

Please click here for the complete newsletter.