Capex · The annual small-project portfolio
Which small projects get funded, and what does deferring cost?
Most capital at an operating site goes out in a hundred or more small lines: exchanger bundles, safety upgrades, tank repairs, energy savings, a new grade. Capex fits them to the envelope, the crews and the turnaround calendar, and puts a price on every line that waits.
Output: a plan that fits the envelope and respects crew capacity and turnaround windows; the cost of each deferral, not only its saving; sanction batches routed to the right approver.
Who it is for
For the people who run the annual round
CFOs, finance controllers, capex committees and plant heads. Every budget holder still owns their requests; Capibud decides the round on one envelope instead of letting each list run until its pot is empty.
- CFO
- Finance controllers
- Capex committees
- Plant and unit heads
- Maintenance and turnaround planners
Questions it answers
- Which lines are funded this year, and which wait?
- What does each deferral cost in expected loss, not just what it saves?
- Do we meet every statutory and HSE deadline?
- Can contractor crews and turnaround windows absorb the plan?
- Who has to approve which projects, and how long will that take?
What Capibud produces
A round you can defend line by line
The plan is solved as one optimisation over every line, every quarter and every crew pool, and compared with the methods most companies use today.
A funded plan
Lines and start quarters chosen within yearly budgets, category floors and ceilings, and commitments already in execution.
Cost of deferral
The expected loss each deferred reliability or HSE line carries, and how much of it is avoidable.
Statutory deadlines met
Mandatory HSE and regulatory items scheduled before their deadlines, with the basis for each recorded.
Crew and window load
Mechanical, electrical and civil crew demand by quarter against capacity, with seasonal derates and turnaround base load.
Method comparison
The same budgets and scenarios run through rank-by-ROI, mandatory-plus-ROI and last year's split, side by side.
Sanction batches
Projects grouped by approver under your delegation of authority, with typical cycle times so FY starts are not missed.
Worked example
A plant's capex round, four ways
Illustrative example — figures invented; not a client or a Capibud demoIn this invented example, 64 projects at a process plant, requesting $410M with 22 already in execution, compete for a $260M two-year envelope. The table compares four ways of choosing on that same portfolio, with the same budgets and the same scenarios.
Ranking by ROI funds 49 lines and looks efficient, but leaves 7 of the 11 mandatory HSE and regulatory items past their deadline. Capibud's plan meets all 11, carries less deferral cost and has a better bad year.
The full round, including crews and approval batches, is in the capex round example.
| Method | Expected value | Bad year(P10) | Deferral cost | Funded | Mandatory met |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capibud plan | 588 | 402 | 41 | 57 | 11 of 11 |
| Rank by ROI | 557 | 361 | 88 | 49 | 4 of 11 |
| Mandatory, then ROI | 541 | 370 | 63 | 52 | 11 of 11 |
| Last year's split | 472 | 318 | 55 | 54 | 11 of 11 |
Illustrative example — figures invented for illustration; not a client or a Capibud demo. Bad year is the P10 value: nine scenarios in ten do better. Last year's split spends only $199M of the envelope.
Percentages scale to 150%. Invented figures. The overload is priced as premium or travelling crews; the committee can add capacity or move work.
How it works
From request sheets to sanction batches
What it connects to
Sustaining capex meets growth capex
The capex round draws on the same money as new plants and recovery plans. In the committee, the best unfunded sustaining lines compete directly with everything else.
Groups on the envelope
Capex categories enter the pooled plan as funded and best-unfunded groups.
The capital committeeMid-year changes
Price moves and new requests re-open the plan through a priced proposal.
The brainOverrides kept
Every forced or excluded line is recorded with its reason and approver.
The recordHonest limits
What Capex does not do
The plan is only as good as the requests. Capibud makes the trade-offs explicit; it does not invent the benefits.
- Benefits come from the requests. If a unit overstates a saving, the plan inherits it. Capibud applies benefit uncertainty by category and flags outliers.
- Hazard priors are estimates. The expected loss of a deferred line rests on reliability priors you should review and replace with your own failure history.
- No ERP connector yet. Request sheets and ledgers arrive as files; native ERP import is on the roadmap.
- The committee decides. The optimiser proposes; overrides are allowed and recorded, and the plan is never applied without approval.
Related
See it worked, by industry
The capex round has its own illustrative example, and it is one of the four decisions in the coastal refiner example. Both use invented figures.
Bring us this year's capex round.
A Decision Sprint can take one annual allocation from your request sheets to a routed sanction plan in six weeks.