Oil and Gas production of Sultanate of Oman accounts for 90 % of the total income. Sultanate of Oman currently produces about 940 K barrel per day. As of today, there are twenty two firms active in this sector, Ministry of Oil & Gas (2011). Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) is the largest company in the Omani oil & gas sector which accounts for nearly 60% of the total country's oil production. The Omani government owns 60% of PDO shares, Shell owns %34 of PDO  and the balance shares belong to Total and Partex.

PDO is comprised mainly of three operational directories namely, Oil-North, Oil-South, and Gas in additional to other supporting directories such as People & External affairs, Exploration, Petroleum Engineering,  Well Engineering Infrastructure and Finance. Early in 2000s, PDO used to produce 940 K barrel  per day but the production had been on the decrease since then i.e easy oil got produced. PDO has accomplished many seismic and subsurface studies which have concluded that oil production can be enhanced with aid of secondary and tertiary recoveries such as steam and miscible gas injections. Moreover, oil production can be enhanced via the development of sour fields.

All of the above has contributed to the increase to complexity of the projects PDO is undertaking. Over the past few years, PDO oil and gas project costs have soared up from few $ hundreds millions (large-scale projects) to few $ billons projects (mega projects). PDO recently has awarded a project called RababHarweel Integrated Project (RHIP) for $ 4.7 billons. Project complexities in terms of technical challenges, number of involved equipments, novelty, used material and others are among the reasons for such costly projects. PDO is planning to invest nearly about $ 22 billion on complex projects in order to maintain production and keep sustainable operation.

Aim

The complexities in projects are on the increase, Wysocki (2009). Beside, effective and efficient project management is an essential ingredient toward organizational success, Samdani and Till, (2007).  Bearing in mind the huge investment and requirements to keep PDO sustainable operation, it is imperative to assess the maturity level. In simple words, the core essence of this research /dissertation is to assess project management maturity level of my sponsor / employer {Petroleum Development Oman (PDO)}.

Research Objective

From the prospective that successful project management is a key step toward sustainable operation and helps driving improvement in organizational performance, assessment of project management maturity level has come into the picture.  Project Management Maturity Models (PMMM) have been proven as effective and efficient tool for assessing, benchmarking capabilities  and driving improvement in organizational performance. It's worth to mention that no similar work has been done before for PDO.

It is hoped that this research will successfully asses the maturity level of project management practices in PDO and consequently results will provide a solid ground for positive organizational change. This research should be able to

• Point out the good practices (strength) across different departments / directorates within PDO.
• Establishment of a bench-mark for project management versus different departments / directorates within PDO .
• Identify gaps / shortfalls within the current project management practices across different departments versus corporate governance directives (weakness).
• Come up with recommendations to bring up project management practices (action plan )
• Identification of opportunities to standardize project management practices.

Feasibility study

Being a senior employee within PDO, I have access to the required resources. Moreover, I have full support from senior managers and corporate governance to run this research. Organizational support and openness to such research should help paving the way forward to a successful execution in terms of interviews and survey. Organization support concurrence to run scurvies, interviews and questionnaires.

Justification of the topic

It is of PDO's interest to run such assessment especially we are in the era of complex projects. Valuable insights in this research will be shared with decision makers and corporate governance to support recommendation's action.  It is hoped that the outcome of this report will improve project deliveries across the company in terms of cost, schedule, quality and customer /shareholder's satisfaction.