Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Oil & Gas Planner

🎯 Role Definition

The Oil & Gas Planner is a mission-critical operations and project controls professional responsible for developing, maintaining, and optimizing integrated schedules, supply chain plans, and resource forecasts for upstream and midstream assets (onshore and offshore). This role ensures timely execution of drilling, completion, production and maintenance activities by aligning engineering, procurement, logistics and operations through data-driven scheduling, risk mitigation and continuous improvement. The Planner works closely with operations, engineering, procurement, HSE and commercial teams, uses ERP and scheduling tools (e.g., SAP, Primavera P6, MS Project, Maximo), and communicates status and variances to senior management and joint venture partners.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Scheduler / Planning Engineer
Production or Operations Coordinator
Supply Chain Analyst with oil & gas exposure

Advancement To:

Senior Planner / Lead Planner
Planning & Scheduling Manager / Project Controls Manager
Operations Manager or Asset Manager

Lateral Moves:

Supply Chain & Logistics Manager
Maintenance Planning & Reliability Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop, maintain and optimize integrated short-, medium- and long-term plans and detailed schedules for drilling, completions, well interventions, production campaigns and major maintenance activities, ensuring alignment with business objectives and reservoir forecasts.
Produce and update resource-loaded schedules, including rig and vessel mobilization plans, crew rotations, tooling and critical equipment timelines, and identify critical path activities to drive on-time execution.
Coordinate cross-functional schedule integration between drilling, completions, production operations, maintenance and engineering to eliminate conflicts and ensure logical, achievable sequences of work.
Lead weekly and monthly planning meetings (pre-planning, lookahead, and execution reviews), capturing actions, owners and risk mitigations while delivering concise status updates and variance analysis to senior stakeholders and JV partners.
Create robust material and logistics plans (spares, consumables, tubulars, chemicals, lifting gear), coordinate with procurement and marine logistics to reduce lead times, minimize demurrage, and ensure on-time delivery to the rig or platform.
Prepare rolling forecasts and capacity plans for rigs, crews and third-party service providers; perform scenario modelling to balance production targets, contractual windows and resource constraints.
Maintain and optimize inventory strategies for critical spares and MRO items using MRP outputs, lead-time analyses and consumption forecasting to avoid stockouts during high-risk operations.
Implement and enforce planning standards, procedures and governance (scheduling conventions, lookahead scopes, HSE-critical tasks), driving consistency across assets and project teams.
Execute critical-path and schedule risk analyses, quantify schedule contingency, propose mitigation measures and track their implementation to protect project milestones and production targets.
Use ERP and scheduling tools (SAP MM/PP, SAP PS, Primavera P6, MS Project, Maximo/CMMS) to generate and maintain work orders, purchase requisitions, resource histograms and earned value metrics.
Manage interfaces with third-party contractors, service companies and joint venture partners to secure alignment on schedule, scope, mobilization sequencing and contractual constraints.
Monitor schedule performance using KPIs (schedule adherence, on-time mobilization, percent complete, variance to plan) and prepare executive-ready dashboards and narrative reports for leadership review.
Ensure all planning activities incorporate regulatory and HSE requirements, permit-to-work sequences, and environmental constraints to support safe and compliant execution.
Prepare and control planning inputs for budgets and cost forecasts, liaising with cost control teams to validate resource assumptions and track cost-to-complete against baseline plans.
Facilitate materials requisition prioritization, expedite critical items and resolve supply chain bottlenecks by partnering with procurement and logistics to maintain project momentum.
Develop and maintain lookahead schedules (30/60/90 days) that highlight resource needs, critical materials, permits and offshore/onshore interface points to minimize downtime and handover delays.
Provide planning support for major shutdowns, turnarounds and brownfield modifications including integrated sequencing of contractors, material staging and workforce scheduling to minimize outage duration.
Conduct plan vs. actual analysis and root-cause investigations for schedule slippage; implement corrective actions and revise planning assumptions to improve future forecast accuracy.
Establish and maintain a robust document trail (work scopes, change notices, revisions, JV approvals) to support auditable planning decisions and contract compliance.
Support tendering and bid evaluation activities by providing realistic mobilization and execution schedules, resource estimates and logistics requirements to commercial and project teams.
Mentor and coach junior planners and schedulers, build capability in scheduling software and planning best practices, and drive continuous improvement initiatives across the planning function.
Coordinate helicopter and marine logistics planning for offshore operations, optimizing routing, manifests and transfer windows while managing constraints such as weather, crew change regulations and airlift limitations.
Integrate reservoir production forecasts and well performance models into planning inputs to ensure realistic production ramp-up schedules and to support commercial decision-making.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc reporting requests and exploratory schedule analytics to answer operational questions and support decision-making.
Contribute to the organization’s planning strategy, digital transformation initiatives and roadmap for scheduling automation and predictive analytics.
Collaborate with procurement, commercial and finance teams to translate operational needs into procurement timelines and contract milestones.
Participate in risk workshops and HAZOP/permit reviews to ensure planning assumptions reflect safety and environmental constraints.
Assist in the configuration, testing and rollout of scheduling and ERP enhancements, and validate data integrity across systems.
Provide input to competency matrices and hiring profiles for planning and logistics roles; support selection interviews as subject matter expert.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Integrated production and project scheduling (short, medium and long-term schedule development and maintenance).
Proficiency with Primavera P6 (scheduling logic, resource loading, baseline management) and MS Project for detailed schedule control.
Strong SAP experience (MM, PP, PS modules) for purchase requisitions, work orders, material management and sourcing integration.
Experience with CMMS/EAM systems (IBM Maximo, Infor EAM) for maintenance planning and work order coordination.
Advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, Power Query, Power Pivot, VBA/macros) for forecast modelling and scenario analysis.
Familiarity with production forecasting and reservoir inputs, and ability to integrate well performance into planning scenarios.
Knowledge of supply chain planning, MRP processes, inventory optimization and logistics execution for oil & gas operations.
Proficient in planning methodologies: critical path analysis, resource levelling, earned value management (EVM) and what-if scenario modelling.
Experience with S&OP processes, capacity planning, and contractor/vendor mobilization for offshore/onshore campaigns.
Ability to use dashboarding and visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau) to present schedule KPIs and executive summaries.
Understanding of contract types, mobilization clauses, demobilization logistics and commercial interfaces that impact schedule delivery.
Basic knowledge of HSE permit-to-work systems, regulatory constraints and offshore safety culture to embed compliance into plans.

Soft Skills

Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills; able to present complex schedule data in a concise narrative to technical and commercial audiences.
Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with a bias for data-driven decision making.
Proven negotiation and influencing skills to align cross-functional teams and external contractors on schedule priorities.
Detail-oriented with a disciplined approach to version control and documentation.
Ability to work under pressure and prioritize competing tasks in high-risk, time-sensitive operational environments.
Leadership and team development skills to mentor junior planners and build planning capability across assets.
Adaptability and resilience in dynamic field conditions, including offshore rotations and rapid change requests.
Collaborative mindset with the ability to work across multi-disciplinary and multicultural teams.
Time management and organization skills to manage multiple concurrent campaigns and schedules.
Continuous improvement orientation with curiosity for process optimization and digital tools adoption.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering, Mechanical/Process Engineering, Offshore Engineering, Supply Chain, Operations Management or related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in Engineering, Project Management, MBA or equivalent professional qualifications.
Certifications such as PMP, APICS/CPIM, Primavera certification or NEBOSH/HSE qualifications are advantageous.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Petroleum Engineering
Mechanical or Chemical Engineering
Supply Chain Management / Logistics
Project Controls / Construction Management
Operations Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–10 years in planning, scheduling or operations roles within the oil & gas sector (onshore and/or offshore).

Preferred:

5+ years of direct planning experience supporting upstream drilling, completions, production or major maintenance campaigns.
Demonstrated experience with SAP, Primavera P6 and CMMS applications in oil & gas projects or asset operations.
Experience working in joint venture environments, managing contractor interfaces and reporting to senior management.
Background supporting offshore logistics, rig and vessel mobilizations, and complex materials planning is highly desirable.