In the current market with continuous evolution, especially in the Oil & Gas industry, projects under developed are presented with very challenging and competitive targets. Completing projects in the shortest possible time to anticipate revenues and competitors becomes fundamental. To fulfil this requirement, project schedules are compressed as much as possible and planners overlap activities with the fast tracking technique. This common behavior sometimes forces an exchange of inaccurate information among team members and contractors leading to reworks and extra costs.

The level of overlapping among the exploration and production activities of an upstream development project has been analyzed in this study, with particular attention to the risks and opportunities arising from this typology of planning. The purpose has been to create a statistical model based on historical data able to identify the possible delay due to an excessive activities overlapping and, if applicable, the best level of overlapping. Subsequently, the schedule time saving from fast tracking has been quantified in economic terms to identify the profit for the Company.