Senior Construction Manager

Alaska-Santos; Anchorage (AK); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Relocation benefits

Job summary

A leading oil and gas company in Alaska is seeking a Senior Construction Manager to oversee construction activities for the Pikka Project. This role includes managing fabrication and construction sites while ensuring compliance with safety, quality, and environmental standards. The ideal candidate should have significant experience in oil and gas construction, particularly in cold weather environments. Applicants must possess strong leadership skills and a collaborative approach to drive team performance. Competitive compensation and relocation benefits are available.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of major oil/gas construction experience in leadership roles.
• 5+ years of Arctic construction experience, preferably in Alaska.
• Strong ability to manage complex construction contracts.

Responsibilities

• Manage all aspects of fabrication and construction activities.
• Lead construction site teams as execution manager.
• Ensure all project objectives for safety, cost, and schedule are met.

Skills

Planning and strategy development expertise

Contractor management

Leadership and stakeholder engagement

Operational efficiency improvement

Adaptability and resourcefulness

Multi-tasking

Education

Bachelor's degree in Construction or related field

Job description

Santos operates a world‑class portfolio of oil leases on the Alaskan North Slope, USA. Our current focus in Alaska is advancement of our Pikka Phase 1 project, which includes a single drill site, an oil processing facility, and other infrastructure to support production of 80,000 barrels of oil per day. Pikka has been identified as being among the top quartile of oil and gas development projects for greenhouse gas emissions performance. Pikka is poised to play an important role in the energy transition and is aligned with our company goal of managing climate change risk. The Pikka Unit is one of the largest conventional oil discoveries made in the United States in the last 30 years, and the Pikka Phase 1 Project is the most significant development on Alaska's North Slope in more than 20 years. The permitted Pikka development project includes two additional drill sites in addition to the potential for a future facility expansion. The Alaska assets also include discoveries made from both the Mitquq and Stirrup exploration wells drilled in 2020. These opportunities combine to offer a clear path to continued long‑term growth in Alaska.

Position Purpose

The Senior Construction Manager reports to the Project Director and manages all aspects of fabrication and construction activities for the Pikka Project. The role encompasses planning and execution through to mechanical completion, integration with commissioning and final handover to production operations. Accountable for meeting all safety, environmental, quality, contracting, cost and schedule project objectives. The Senior Construction Manager leads fabrication and construction site teams acting as the overall execution manager for fabrication and site construction scope. This includes working closely with quality, HSSE, materials, logistics, document control, project controls, commissioning, site administration, and contractors as required.

Key Accountabilities and Responsibilities

• Promote and lead in the implementation of Santos Ltd policies and procedures, including Safety, health, environment, process, people and planning
• Develop and lead the safe, efficient and cost‑effective planning and execution of the Completions operations services of the Company's well program and activities in Alaska

Develop construction execution plan for summer and winter seasons based on project schedule

• Support engineering planning by providing need dates for all engineering work packages to achieve the schedule outlined in the execution plan.
• Support the engineering process through coordination of constructability reviews to ensure facilities are designed in accordance with the planned construction methodology.
• Lead the Construction Readiness process to ensure all Contractors and Santos support functions are ready for execution.
• Lead the overall effort of the site teams to review and approve all contractors' execution plans.
• Lead constructability process and provide feedback to the relevant functions.
• Lead construction support strategies and processes.
• Assist in the definition and development of the best contract strategy to deliver the execution plan.
• Aid in identification of qualified vendors to support the different fabrication and construction packages.
• Actively participate in pre‑qualification process of fabrication and construction contractors.
• Ensure completion of construction permits and stipulations, engineering drawings, identify execution constraints, hazards, and finalize the field construction plan for each year's work scope.
• Ensure a comprehensive site communications plan is developed and implemented for all Company and non‑Company stakeholders.
• Ensure delivery is aligned with Santos Management Systems (SMS) and support internal/corporate compliance audits.
• Actively promote Company knowledge sharing; apply best practices, synergies, integration across disciplines and teams.

Execute construction campaigns

• Plan and monitor all construction and fabrication activities against agreed safety, quality, schedule and cost performance metrics.
• Ensure compliance of work to project specifications and contract requirements.
• Facilitate Company and Contractor planning meetings, ensure Company and Contractor deliverables are reviewed and approved by the accountable function.
• Lead all construction activities including management of Contractors and site superintendents.
• Lead site construction issue troubleshooting, develop contingency plans and provide recommendations on triggers to move an alternative approach.
• Support commissioning activities including handover to operations.
• Oversee and supervise all assigned construction resources to ensure key project milestones are achieved and all company execution standards are met for scope, cost, quality, and ESH.
• Manage interfaces between field construction contractors.
• Coordinate overall project execution including SIMOP's activities with Drilling, Completions and Operations.
• Ensure implementation of the agreed upon execution strategy with respect to key priorities and milestones.

Integration

Lead integration activities between the construction team, commissioning team, engineering team, project services, ESH, and other functions to ensure alignment and avoid silos.

Performance Management

• Drive efficiency and implement KPIs to track Completions team performance.
• Agree project reporting requirements with project services teams to provide required progress tracking, productivity and schedule attainment. Embed in contract language with clear deliverables.
• Establish performance metrics to track progress and ensure they are aligned with contract language to eliminate confusion during construction and minimize change requests.
• Lead routine contractor performance meetings to review performance metrics and implement improvement plans as required to maintain schedule/quality/cost performance.

Qualifications, Skills, and Experience Required

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Construction or 20 years field experience preferred.

Experience

• 10+ years of major oil / gas construction and fabrication project experience in senior leadership roles.
• 5+ years of cold weather or Arctic construction experience essential with some Alaska North Slope experience preferred.
• Solid and proven understanding of managing fabrication and complex construction contracts.
• Advanced level multi‑tasking skills with proven ability to manage multiple ongoing activities.
• Ability to work collaboratively with other disciplines and across organizational boundaries.
• Listens actively and invites dialogue for shared understanding, then influences and acts to drive performance and achieve results.
• Builds strong relationships based on trust and seeks collaboration across organizational boundaries to achieve goals.
• Drives thoughtful and pragmatic change, encourages innovative thinking and continuous improvement, and models adaptability through resourcefulness, flexibility, and positivity.
• Willing and able to travel frequently (up to 30% of the time), typically within the USA. Occasional international travel may be required.

Skills / Technical Competencies

• Demonstrable planning and strategy development expertise.
• Demonstrable experience of improving operational efficiency whilst maintaining an absolute focus on ESH.
• Demonstrable of applying technically innovative solutions to complex challenges.
• Strong skills in contractor management.
• Exceptional leadership and stakeholder engagement skills with a proven track‑record of delivering strong results through people.
• Ability to manage strategy implementation while ensuring quality control and attention to ESH.
• Exceptional productivity skills. Can be relied on to get the job done accurately and on time.
• Must have a strong work ethic, and a reputation for the highest degree of integrity and mature business judgment.