Assessment of Project Management Practices in Petroleum Industry Engineering Projects in Delta State

This research assesses the application of project management practices in engineering projects executed in the petroleum industry operating environment of Delta State, South South Nigeria. Petroleum industry engineering projects, encompassing facility construction, pipeline installation, and processing plant modification work, are characterised by high capital values, complex multi-contractor interfaces, significant safety obligations, and challenging logistics in Niger Delta terrain. This study employs a structured project management maturity assessment framework to evaluate current project management capabilities across five process groups: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. Data were gathered through self-assessment questionnaires completed by forty-six project management practitioners in sixteen organisations operating in Delta State, and findings were triangulated through semi-structured interviews with twelve senior project managers. Results indicate a mean project management maturity level of 2.4 on a five-point scale, with the planning and monitoring and controlling process groups demonstrating notably weaker performance than execution capabilities. Schedule performance index and cost performance index data from twenty-three recently completed projects confirm that cost overruns and schedule delays are prevalent, with only thirty-five percent of projects completing within ten percent of original budget and schedule targets. Keywords: project management, petroleum industry, project maturity, Delta State, schedule performance