Oil & Gas Project Project Charter
This is a practical guide to building a project charter for an oil & gas project project — the short authorising document that names the sponsor, states the objective and gives the manager authority to run the project, adapted to the realities of delivering an oil and gas facility or field development.
What a Project Charter is
A project charter is the short authorising document that names the sponsor, states the objective and gives the manager authority to run the project. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Charter. On an oil & gas project project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for an Oil & Gas Project project
Oil & Gas Project projects live or die on delivering an oil and gas facility or field development. A well-built project charter gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how oil & gas project projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Purpose and business justification
- Objectives and success criteria
- High-level scope (in and out)
- Budget and timeline summary
- Key stakeholders and sponsor sign-off
Oil & Gas Project-specific considerations
Tailor the project charter to the risks that most often derail oil & gas project projects:
- HSE and regulatory risk
- Remote logistics
- Commodity price exposure
Example
On a real oil & gas project project, the project charter would be shaped by delivering an oil and gas facility or field development. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — HSE and regulatory risk, remote logistics, commodity price exposure — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.