A recent analysis of more than twenty LNG terminals across North America found average cost overruns of 59.7% on completed projects — and 38% on those still under construction.
This isn't a legacy problem the industry has grown out of. It's happening on today's builds.
One project I worked on scope-crept by more than $7 billion between approval and first gas. Two trains. No single decision explains it.
Late engineering changes flowed into construction. Process decisions landed after the work they affected had already started. By commissioning, the gap between design intent and installed reality had to be found the hard way.
A loop-check is usually where that gap surfaces first.
An instrument tag doesn't match the latest P&ID revision — it was installed against an earlier iteration. Cable routing was field-changed months earlier and never made it back into the loop folder.
The technician signing off has no way to tell whether it's a paperwork lag or a real installation error. So it goes to query. And it waits.
Multiply that across every loop, every train, every discipline interface, and "a few days behind" in the weekly report becomes the number nobody wants to explain a year later.
