This paper seeks to explore how strategic resources in petroleum industry projects are to be best managed and exploited in order to deliver enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness. Framed upon the Resource-Based View (‘RBV’) theory, these resources should be ‘Valuable’, ‘Inimitable’, ‘Rare’ and be able to draw on ‘Organisational support’ (‘VIRO’). Qualitative data were collected from petroleum industry organizations operating in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman between 2017 and 2019. The analysis shows that at the project level, ‘Value’ and ‘Organisational support’ attributes of resources were positively related to competitive advantage and both impacted by dynamic capabilities and innovative environment. However, the ‘Rareness’ and ‘Inimitability’ attributes showed less evolution. We also find that at the project level, the main characteristics of organizational resources were that they are ‘Valuable’, ‘Organizationally supported’, and that they could be ‘Uniquely exploited’ while being ‘Readily available’. The results suggest a desire by project-oriented organizations to replace the ‘Rareness’ and ‘Inimitability’ attributes within VIRO with two alternative attributes, namely ‘Unique exploitation’ and ‘Timely availability’ of resources.