# Critical Factors behind Construction Delay in Petrochemical Projects in Saudi Arabia
## 9 Conclusions  
Petrochemicals have become essential materials in our daily life. The petrochemicals industry is similar to any other Oil and Gas industry. It invests very huge capital annually on different projects in nature; expansion, revamp, legal, safety, and so forth. Those projects are impacted mostly during the construction phase, which leads to either cost overruns, time delays or both, and causes millions of Saudi Riyals of losses. The potential factors causing cost overruns or schedule delays were identified from literature reviews and people having experience in this class of projects. Then, the survey was designed, developed, and distributed among the owner and contractors' employees to check the relevance of those factors on those projects.  
All completed responses (90) were analyzed using the Relative Importance Index (RII), Frequency Index (FI), and Frequency Adjusted Importance Index (FAII). The adapted ranking was FAII as it combines both importance and frequency measures. Based on FAII, it was found that the top five critical factors are the Delays in material or the equipment delivery (1 st), Delays in getting work permits (nd), Poor site management and supervision by contractors (3 rd), Poor Planning and Scheduling of Projects by the Contractor (4 th), and Long time for approval and decision making by owner (5 th). On the other hand, the least five effective factors are governmental and political related issues (23 rd), Inflation and escalation of material prices (2 nd), Wrong construction methods (21 st), Unforeseen (unexpected) site conditions (20 th), and Delays in progress payment by owner (19 th).  
Eventfully, several recommendations were generated for both owners and contractors. For example, from the owner side, to dedicated work permit issuers, the involvement of experienced people in the project to help in making the decision, and so forth. From the contractor side, to provide monitoring and control tools like SPI for material delivery, to hire qualified and experience people for site management, and so forth. Ultimately, the objective of this report is already met by assessing the potential factor and providing the required recommendations to help in avoiding those factors from happening.  
**Author Contributions:** The authors [PERSON] and [PERSON] contributed to all parts of the research starting from literature review, identifying factors to be included in the study, data collection, analysis, discussion and writing-Original draft reparation, writing-review and Editing.  
**Funding:** This research received no external funding.  
**Acknowledgments:** The authors would like to thank KFUPM for the facilities provided to carry out this research.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.  
**Appendix: Survey Sample.**  
**Critical Factors Causing Schedule Delay during**  
**Construction phase of Petrochemical Projects in Saudi Arabia**  
**Page 1**  
The objective of this survey is to identify the critical factors affecting projects' construction phase and help to generate recommendation in order to improve petrochemical business.  
**General Information and Background**  
**Please Select Your Company From the Below Options \({}^{*}\)**  
Owner  
Contractor  
Other  
**What is Your Job Title in Your Organization \({}^{*}\)**  
Project Manager  
Project Engineer  
Construction Supervisor  
Other  
**Please Select Your Total Experience in Executing Petrochemical Projects \({}^{*}\)**  
1 - 5 Years  
5 -10 Years  
10 - 15 Years  
More than 15 YearsEnergies_**2018**, _11_, 1652  
In Next Section, You will Explore 23 Potential Factors Impacting Project During Construction Stage. From Your Experience in Petrochemical, Kindly Evaluate Each Factor Based on Impact Level and Frequency Level**.  
* Impact level means how bad this factor can impact Project Cost or Schedule.
* Frequency Level means how often this factor can happen.