As a national strategic resource, oil and gas resources affect the safety and stability of China’s economy directly. With the saturation of domestic oil and gas construction projects, more and more oil and gas construction companies are actively responding to the country’s Belt and Road Initiative and increasing their share in overseas oil and gas operations. With the pace of project construction, Chinese-funded oil and gas construction companies have won the favor of many overseas oil and gas project sponsors by taking advantage of their lower labor costs and better construction quality. However, in recent years, affected by the complex environment such as the global COVID-19 epidemic and oil and gas price fluctuations, the overseas sponsors of oil and gas projects have been reducing capital investment, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to win project tenders. Furthermore project execution cost and profit margin become hard to manage. It is difficult to meet the goal of project development by implementing just a single aspect of cost control. In order to ensure that Chinese oil and gas construction companies can successfully won projects overseas and achieve reasonable project profits, this article develops a concept of professional project management to guide oil and gas engineering construction companies to plan for an optimum development life cycle as a strategy to improve project quality and increase profit margin. The concept is based on our own overseas experience, incorporating various international advanced management concepts of an engineering construction company, considering all development phases of the life cycle of oil and gas projects. For each stage of the project life cycle, by listing a series of important planning points and expected difficulties, this professional project management concept guides Chinese oil and gas engineering construction companies to achieve the goals of improving project quality and execution efficiency throughout the project life cycle.