Causes of material delays in capital projects in Saudi Arabia

Projects in the oil and gas industry are typically accompanied by time extensions, cost overruns, and owners' disappointment. Material delay is one factor for project cost overrun, delays, poor productivity, and compromised quality. This study focuses on factors affecting material availability on capital projects. Twenty-three factors were identified from the literature and experts. These factors were listed in a survey distributed to professionals in Saudi Arabia within the oil and gas industry. Two categorizations were made: the first is based on the cause's impact, and the second is based on the frequency of occurrence of the identified cause. The collected responses were evaluated using the average, standard deviation, relative importance index, frequency index, the frequency adjusted importance index, and the risk matrix. The statistics revealed that the highest three causes in terms of both the frequency and importance are errors in the design and contractual documentation, poor estimation, and inflation of material costs. These results suggest that stakeholders should stress more in developing quality designs and contractual documents. Besides, contractors are recommended to enhance their material cost estimation methods and seriously consider material cost inflation and the fluctuation in material costs during the preparation of their bid prices.