How to write an owner's engineer RFP that gets you comparable bids

You have decided the project needs an owner's engineer, and a shortlist is waiting. Send a loose owner's engineer RFP and the proposals cannot be compared: day rates from one firm, a lump sum for a quietly rewritten scope from another, an organisation chart with no names from a third. The choice falls to the lowest number or the best presentation, and neither tells you who will sit beside you when the first contractor claim lands.

An owner's engineer request for proposal has one job: make every bidder answer the same question in the same shape, so the differences you see are real. We work as owner's engineer ourselves; this is the request we would like to receive. If your panel needs the basics, see what an owner's engineer does.

What should an owner's engineer RFP tell the bidders?

Bidders price what they cannot see: every gap comes back as padding, an exclusion or a hidden assumption. Write the scope as its own document before the request goes out, and attach it unchanged. Around it, the request should state:

• The asset and its stage. An oil and gas field, geothermal wells, a CO2 storage site or a subsea development, and whether it is in concept, heading for FID, in execution or changing hands.
• The decisions ahead. An investment decision, a contract award, an acquisition closing, a regulator's review.
• Your own team. Who does what on your side, so nobody prices a role you already fill.
• The other parties. Contractors, partners, the seller in an acquisition, any lender and its engineer. Without names, nobody can check for conflicts.
• Where the work happens. Offices, rig or vessel, and how often in person.
• The data. What exists, what is still coming, and when access starts.
• Your draft contract. Including a bar on the owner's engineer bidding for delivery work, confidentiality terms for data access and the liability position you expect, so bidders comment before you choose.
• How you will choose. Criteria, weights and how price counts, stated up front.

If a firm helps draft the request, decide before issue whether it may also bid, and tell everyone.

If you also want the firm to manage the project on your side, price that separately, so owner-side project management services are judged on their merits, not hidden in an advisory fee.

How do you ask for price so the bids line up?

Owner's engineer work is mostly senior time against a workload that follows the contractors, so it cannot be fixed in advance. Choose the pricing shape for the bidders.

• Supply the price sheet. Rows by phase or task, columns by named person, each with a rate and estimated hours.
• Set the workload assumptions yourself. State the review cycles, site visits and offshore trips you expect, and have everyone price the same ones.
• Match the price to how defined the work is. A fixed price suits bounded deliverables, such as a design review; rates with estimated hours suit ongoing support.
• List assumptions and exclusions separately. Ask for both as lists, with a price for adding each exclusion back.
• Allow alternatives only alongside a compliant bid. A bidder with a better idea prices your scope first and the alternative separately.
• Ask how change is priced. Extra people, travel, and what triggers a scope change.

With every proposal in one format, you can cost each gap and compare evaluated cost, not headline cost, as we do for contractor bids evaluated from the owner's side.

What should every proposal contain?

State the contents and the order, so you can read the proposals side by side:

• Your scope, marked up. Accepted as written, or with each change shown and explained.
• The named team. CVs, the role on your project and the share of each person's time committed.
• Comparable engagements. The named person's role in each, and whether it was owner-side or contractor-side.
• An independence declaration. Ties to every party named in your request, listed rather than affirmed.
• Your price sheet, completed. With the assumptions and exclusions lists.
• Comments on your draft contract. Every clause they would change, stated now rather than after award.
• Client references. Contacts you may call, on engagements led by the named lead.

Which evaluation criteria predict a good owner's engineer?

Fix criteria and weights before proposals arrive, and lock technical scores before anyone opens the price sheets.

• The named people. Score the individuals who will do the work, not the firm's reference list, and back that with a key-person clause: no substitutions without your consent.
• Independence. The declared ties, a commitment not to bid for delivery work, and how a mid-project conflict would be handled.
• Real availability. What else each named person is committed to over your schedule, and whether they can reach the site when something goes wrong.
• Experience on your type of asset. A deep geothermal well, a CO2 storage site and a subsea development carry different risks; experience does not automatically transfer.
• How findings reach you. Who reports to whom, and how fast bad news travels.
• References you actually call. Speak to a past client of the named lead, and ask what the adviser told them that they did not want to hear.

Anonymised case descriptions are normal in this work; our six owner-side engagements are published that way, from “Mature-field acquisition, de-risked” to “CO2 storage site, characterised and licensed”. What counts is who led the work, so ask every bidder, us included, to name the lead on each engagement they cite.

If a name fills the CV pages but barely appears in the price sheet, that person will barely appear on your project.

Questions that separate strong owner's engineer proposals from weak ones

Put some of these in the RFP and keep the rest for the interview with the named lead, not the sales team.

• What would they change in your scope, and why? A firm that accepts every line may not have read it closely.
• Which part of the scope should someone else do? A firm that claims all of it is guessing about some of it.
• What finding did a client not want to hear, and what happened next? You are buying the willingness to say it.
• How would they handle a real situation from your project? A contractor claim, an underperforming well, a vessel waiting on weather. Listen for names and first steps.
• If they also run the project for you, who reviews their own decisions? Advising and managing in one firm needs someone who checks the work.
• What would make the hours estimate wrong? A good bidder knows where its estimate is weakest.

Red flags in owner's engineer responses

• Roles without names, or names marked “subject to availability”.
• Senior CVs at the front and junior hours in the price sheet.
• A rewritten scope, priced in place of yours, with no compliant bid beside it.
• An independence statement with no list behind it, or a related company that could bid for delivery work.
• An hours estimate far below the others, with no explanation.
• Exclusions that hand the hard part back to you: no site attendance, a single review pass, claims support priced as extra.
• No questions during clarifications, on a project full of unknowns.

None of these rules a firm out alone; each is a question to put in writing. The same discipline applies to the EPC packages, rigs and vessels you buy next, which is how we approach tender management services for owners.

If you are hiring an owner's engineer for an oil and gas, geothermal or CO2 storage project, tell us about the asset and the decisions ahead. Every project of ours stays with the senior partner who scoped it, with no bench of juniors behind the proposal: the test this note asks you to apply to every bidder, us included.