MOC backlog elimination and process safety recovery: Major LNG facility, PNG
Project Summary
Sector
LNG / Oil & Gas
Location
Papua New Guinea
Client
ASX-listed E&P operator
Service
Safety Management
Capability
Process safety & MOC
The challenge
At a major LNG production facility in Papua New Guinea, a growing backlog of over 700 Management of Change records had accumulated - unreviewed, unresolved, and representing a compounding gap between how the asset was designed and how it was operating.
MOC is a critical process safety control - the mechanism that ensures every change to plant, process, or procedure is formally assessed, approved, and documented before implementation. When MOC breaks down, the gap between how an asset is designed and how it operates becomes a source of uncontrolled hazard. A backlog of 700 unresolved records is not an administrative problem. It is a process safety risk.
Process safety events were trending in the wrong direction. Leading indicator data was telling a clear story: operational risk had reached a level visible at board level, demanding urgent and structured intervention. Left unaddressed, the trajectory pointed toward a significant process safety incident.
What Winston Green Advisory did
The programme was anchored in systematic MOC close-out - treating the backlog not as an administrative task, but as the primary mechanism for restoring the gap between design intent and operating reality. A dedicated team of 20 specialists were deployed along with an excess of USD $5 million across five integrated workstreams:
MOC backlog elimination: Systematic review, prioritisation, risk-based triage, and close-out of 700+ outstanding MOC records - re-establishing a verified, auditable technical baseline.
Technical baseline restoration: Reconciling as-built plant conditions against design documentation to restore drawing accuracy and eliminate latent hazards from undocumented plant changes.
Preventive maintenance uplift: Completing overdue PM tasks to restore equipment integrity, reduce latent failure risk, and rebuild the reliability foundation underpinning process safety.
Operational discipline & culture: Embedding improved operational discipline across the workforce through structured engagement and leadership alignment - making MOC compliance a cultural norm, not a compliance exercise.
Process safety event reduction: Targeting Tier 4 PSEs as leading indicators and driving them to elimination through root cause investigation and corrective action close-out.
The outcome
700+ → closed
MOC records reviewed, prioritised, and closed out — design intent restored
PSEs → zero
Tier 4 process safety events eliminated — board-level risk resolved
79% → 93%
Asset reliability uplift — contributing to record company revenue
The results were transformational - operationally, commercially, and culturally. Sustained improvement in process safety performance was achieved across the facility, and record production contributed directly to the highest revenue in the company's history.
When process safety leading indicators reach the boardroom, the response must match the scale of the risk. This programme did exactly that.
At the heart of that performance recovery was MOC - the often-overlooked process safety pillar that, when neglected, silently accumulates risk, and when restored, unlocks the operational discipline that production performance depends on. This programme demonstrated that process safety investment is not a cost to be minimised - it is the foundation on which production performance is built.
Winston Green Advisory capability demonstrated
Large-scale MOC backlog management, triage, and close-out
Process safety event investigation and elimination
Asset integrity and preventive maintenance programme leadership
Operational discipline and safety culture transformation
Demonstrated commercial return on process safety investment
Engagement delivered prior to the establishment of Winston Green Advisory. Details anonymised in accordance with client confidentiality obligations.
