Koura (Orbia) — Building an Owner’s Engineering Team

FEL-2 Leadership for a Mega-Project

The Challenge

Koura, an Orbia company, was preparing for one of the largest capital projects in its history at its St. Gabriel, Louisiana site. The project carried significant complexity: overlapping greenfield developments, a high-stakes joint venture, and interdependent timelines.

Several risks stood out:

No established Owner’s Engineering Team to lead scope and control definition.
Fragmented technical data that was incomplete or siloed, threatening FEL-2 readiness.
Organizational friction around decision rights and team responsibilities.
Compressed timelines requiring rapid maturity of deliverables.

BPMP’s Role

At the request of the Project Director, BPMP was engaged to strengthen the Owner’s role and enable FEL-2 success by:

Standing up an Owner’s Engineering Team

Standing up an Owner’s Engineering Team from the ground up, clarifying roles and accountabilities.

Embedding leadership day-to-day

Embedding leadership day-to-day with Koura’s project managers and engineers to coordinate deliverables and reduce bottlenecks.

Unifying governance

Unifying governance across project, operations, and contractor interfaces to accelerate decision-making.

Coaching engineers and managers

Coaching engineers and managers in best practices for FEL-2 reviews, documentation, and contractor oversight.

Managing Owner’s contractors

Managing Owner’s contractors to ensure alignment with project standards and deliverables.

The Results

Owner’s Engineering Team established and fully functional within months.
Critical technical data validated and integrated into FEL-2 deliverables.
FEL-2 package completed on schedule, compliant with industry standards and corporate requirements.
Improved collaboration between corporate, site, and contractor teams, providing a stronger foundation for decision-making.

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Why It Matters

Ultimately, changing underlying conditions led Koura to shelve the project before execution. This outcome highlights one of FEL’s most important functions: ensuring that major capital projects only advance when definition maturity and risk justify the investment. By completing a disciplined FEL-2, Koura made an informed decision that protected the company from greater downside exposure.

Large projects demand strong Owner’s capability from the start. Whether your team needs to build FEL-2 discipline, stand up an Owner’s Engineering function, or improve definition maturity.