RESOURCES

🔗 Ashok Sinha profile: https://portfolio-pplus.com/Experts/Expert?ASPID=5f39be5d-7fb0-48f1-af4d-1c213d9e1fef

🔗 Entities and production sites on ppPLUS: https://portfolio-pplus.com/EntityMains/AllOrgView

🔗 Encyclopedia of process technologies on ppPLUS: https://portfolio-pplus.com/Technologies

🔔 SUBSCRIBE to Molecules to Market for more in-depth conversations on refining, petrochemicals, and energy infrastructure with the industry's leading practitioners.

DESCRIPTION

Cost overruns can sink even the best-engineered mega-projects — so what actually separates a reliable cost estimate from a dangerous guess? In this episode of Molecules to Market, host Nicolas sits down with Ashok Sinha, a cost management and project controls executive with over four decades of experience overseeing capital projects worth more than $3 billion annually across nuclear power, oil and gas, refining, petrochemicals, LNG, mining, and infrastructure.

Ashok shares the moving personal story behind his company, Archit Business Solutions, breaks down the AACE International classes of cost estimates, and explains exactly why projects blow past budget — from undefined scope of work to skipped earned value management. He also walks through his own cost-estimating software, "Project Estimates in Seconds," built during COVID and now used by a major Canadian utility for real class 4/5 estimates in minutes instead of months.

The conversation closes with a preview of an exciting collaboration: applying Ashok's cost-estimating tools to Portfolio Planning Plus's upcoming model refinery project in India, developed together with previous guest Sanjay Gupta.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome and Introduction
01:31 – The Moving Story Behind Archit Business Solutions
03:57 – What Is Cost Estimating?
06:45 – Why Cost Estimating?
11:30 – Global Project vs. Individual Asset Estimates
17:25 – AACE International and the Classes of Estimates
22:26 – Causes of Cost Escalation
30:53 – Over-Estimating vs. Under-Estimating
36:29 – Engineering Approaches and the Scope of Work
41:41 – Collaboration on the Model Refinery Project
43:36 – Project Estimates in Seconds: The Software
45:20 – How Much Detail Do You Need? Licensor Data and Accuracy
51:45 – Known-Unknowns, Unknown-Unknowns, Budgetary Quotations and Reliability
59:47 – Comparison with Other Market Software
1:03:17 – Simplicity, Transparency and a Live Demonstration
1:07:51 – The Software's Value Proposition: Pain Points vs. Benefits
1:16:28 – Closing Remarks and Next Episode on Earn Value Management