JIP Drives New Ways of Managing Integrity of Floating Oil and Gas Assets

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (04) ◽  
pp. 37-38
Author(s):  
Judy Feder
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Process Equipment ◽  
Operational Effectiveness ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Offshore Technology ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Integrity Management

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Judy Feder, contains highlights of paper OTC 30425, “Innovative Asset-Integrity Management To Drive Operational Effectiveness,” by Danny Constantinis and Peter Davies, EM&I, prepared for the 2020 Offshore Technology Conference Asia, originally scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 17–19 August. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Copyright 2020 Offshore Technology Conference. Reproduced by permission. While the focus on the growing floating gas industry is firmly on output, the industry needs to ensure safety, compliance, and profitability of high-value, complex, floating gas assets, some of which operate close to high population densities. Effective asset-integrity programs are a key part of such an effort, and it is widely agreed that better use of data and robotics will help reduce unnecessary work and human risk. The complete paper describes a joint industry approach for addressing asset-integrity management challenges that has proved successful for floating production, storage, and offloading vessels (FPSOs). Introduction Managing the integrity of offshore, near-shore, and berthed floating oil and gas assets faces numerous challenges, including the following: - Long service lives - The need to cut operating costs - Varying asset-integrity requirements of marine and process equipment - Growing global demand for gas - Increasing requirement to drive down carbon emissions - The need for enhanced sustainability Traditional cost-reduction strategies of prior lean market periods are no longer accepted by the industry, which the authors say needs to implement permanent cost reductions, increased sustainability and efficiency, and improved safety. These can be achieved only by new ways of managing asset integrity, targeted at consistent low price and efficiencies and developed, supported, and accepted by all sectors of the industry. Role of the Joint Industry Project (JIP) The Hull Inspection Techniques and Strategy (HITS) JIP has encouraged such innovations. The complete paper describes new methods facilitated by HITS that include diverless inspections of hulls and mooring systems and remote, unmanned methods of inspecting confined spaces such as cargo and water ballast tanks. Organizations such as the HITS JIP, whose membership includes oil majors, service providers, classification societies, and regulators, and the FPSO Research Forum, of which HITS is a part, have helped define the direction for improvements in inspecting, maintaining, and repairing floating production assets. These organizations have encouraged the development of new technologies that have improved safety and reduced operational costs. According to the paper’s authors, this direction has also shaped the drilling sector, can do the same for floating liquified natural gas (FLNG) and floating storage and regasification units (FSRU), and could potentially expand into floating renewable-energy-production assets. These and similar concepts are now being taken forward in a floating gas (FloGas) JIP.

Integrity Management of Aged Equipment in Sour Oil and Gas Service: Kuwait Oil Company Approach

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Wahab Al-Mithin ◽  
Abdul Wahab Al-Ahmad ◽  
Vinayak Sardesai ◽  
G. Santhosh Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Hydrogen Sulphide ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Pressure Vessels ◽  
Life Extension ◽  
Process Equipment ◽  
Operating Environment ◽  
Material Degradation ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Oil Company

The professionals across the Oil & Gas industry have strived to combat the adverse effects of Hydrogen Sulphide and maintain the integrity of vital facilities. The detrimental effects of Hydrogen Sulphide on process equipment has remained as one of the prime subject of research in Oil & Gas Industry, fostering the advancement of inspection philosophies and necessitating adoption of appropriate mitigating measures. The challenge of Integrity Management increases with the ageing of equipment and increased influx of sour media. This paper discusses: • The change in operating environment — from non sour to sour. • The actions taken to protect the equipment in the changed operating environment. • Consequent changes in the inspection strategies and techniques to detect material degradation. • Material protection methodologies deployed to manage the age old facilities for safe operation. This paper gives an insight into the various methodologies adopted in KOC to address asset/plant life extension issues of an operating company to tackle the challenges caused by the changed composition of fluids handled. The paper illustrates adoption of appropriate inspection strategies, application of effective internal coating systems, periodic online monitoring of the pressure vessels to improve confidence level with respect to integrity of the vessels without necessitating major changes in the facilities.

Mining the air: Political ecologies of the circular carbon economy

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110614
Author(s):  
Holly Jean Buck
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Carbon Utilization ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fossil Carbon ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Carbon Economy

Can fossil-based fuels become carbon neutral or carbon negative? The oil and gas industry is facing pressure to decarbonize, and new technologies are allowing companies and experts to imagine lower-carbon fossil fuels as part of a circular carbon economy. This paper draws on interviews with experts, ethnographic observations at carbontech and carbon management events, and interviews with members of the public along a suggested CO2 pipeline route from Iowa to Texas, to explore: What is driving the sociotechnical imaginary of circular fossil carbon among experts, and what are its prospects? How do people living in the landscapes that are expected to provide carbon utilization and removal services understand their desirability and workability? First, the paper examines a contradiction in views of carbon professionals: while experts understand the scale of infrastructure, energy, and capital required to build a circular carbon economy, they face constraints in advocating for policies commensurate with this scale, though they have developed strategies for managing this disconnect. Second, the paper describes views from the land in the central US, surfacing questions about the sustainability of new technologies, the prospect of carbon dioxide pipelines, and the way circular carbon industries could intersect trends of decline in small rural towns. Experts often fail to consider local priorities and expertise, and people in working landscapes may not see the priorities and plans of experts, constituting a “double unseeing.” Robust energy democracy involves not just resistance to dominant imaginaries of circular carbon, but articulation of alternatives. New forms of expert and community collaboration will be key to transcending this double unseeing and furthering energy democracy.

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in the Oil Industry: Will it Take My Job?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armstrong Lee Agbaji
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Deep Dive ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Robotics

Abstract Historically, the oil and gas industry has been slow and extremely cautious to adopt emerging technologies. But in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the industry has broken from tradition. It has not only embraced AI; it is leading the pack. AI has not only changed what it now means to work in the oil industry, it has changed how companies create, capture, and deliver value. Thanks, or no thanks to automation, traditional oil industry skills and talents are now being threatened, and in most cases, rendered obsolete. Oil and gas industry day-to-day work is progressively gravitating towards software and algorithms, and today’s workers are resigning themselves to the fact that computers and robots will one day "take over" and do much of their work. The adoption of AI and how it might affect career prospects is currently causing a lot of anxiety among industry professionals. This paper details how artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics has redefined what it now means to work in the oil industry, as well as the new challenges and responsibilities that the AI revolution presents. It takes a deep-dive into human-robot interaction, and underscores what AI can, and cannot do. It also identifies several traditional oilfield positions that have become endangered by automation, addresses the premonitions of professionals in these endangered roles, and lays out a roadmap on how to survive and thrive in a digitally transformed world. The future of work is evolving, and new technologies are changing how talent is acquired, developed, and retained. That robots will someday "take our jobs" is not an impossible possibility. It is more of a reality than an exaggeration. Automation in the oil industry has achieved outcomes that go beyond human capabilities. In fact, the odds are overwhelming that AI that functions at a comparable level to humans will soon become ubiquitous in the industry. The big question is: How long will it take? The oil industry of the future will not need large office complexes or a large workforce. Most of the work will be automated. Drilling rigs, production platforms, refineries, and petrochemical plants will not go away, but how work is done at these locations will be totally different. While the industry will never entirely lose its human touch, AI will be the foundation of the workforce of the future. How we react to the AI revolution today will shape the industry for generations to come. What should we do when AI changes our job functions and workforce? Should we be training AI, or should we be training humans?

Subsea Cable Stability on Rocky Seabeds: Comparison of Field Observations Against Conventional and Novel Design Methods

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Griffiths ◽  
Scott Draper ◽  
Liang Cheng ◽  
Feifei Tong ◽  
Antonino Fogliani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Power Transmission ◽  
Small Diameter ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Operational Reliability ◽  
Design Methods ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Tidal Stream ◽  
Almost All

As offshore renewable energy projects progress from concept demonstration to commercial-scale developments there is a need for improved approaches beyond conventional cable engineering design methods that have evolved from larger diameter pipelines for the oil and gas industry. New approaches are needed to capture the relevant physics for small diameter cables on rocky seabeds to reduce the costs and risks of power transmission and increase operational reliability. This paper reports on subsea cables that MeyGen installed for Phase 1a of the Pentland Firth Inner Sound tidal stream energy project. These cables are located on rocky seabeds in an area where severe metocean conditions occur. ROV field observation of these cables shows them to be stable on the seabed with little or no movement occurring over almost all of the cable routes, despite conventional engineering methods predicting significant dynamic movement. We cite recent research undertaken by the University of Western Australia (UWA) to more accurately assess the hydrodynamic forces and geotechnical interaction of cables on rocky seabeds. We quantify the conformity between the cables and the undulating rocky seabed, and the distributions of cable-seabed contact and spanning via simulations of the centimetric-scale seabed bathymetry. This analysis leads to calculated profiles of lift, drag and seabed friction along the cable, which show that all of these load and reaction components are modelled in an over-conservative way by conventional pipeline engineering techniques. Overall, our analysis highlights that current cable stability design can be unnecessarily conservative on rocky seabeds. Our work foreshadows a new design approach that offers more efficient cable design to reduce project capex and enhance through-life integrity management.

Enhancing Indigenous partnerships in an increasingly digitised oil and gas industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 639
Author(s):  
Michael Lynn ◽  
David Wirrpanda
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Career Pathways ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Digital Workplace ◽  
The Right

As oil and gas operators and service providers look to embrace automation and analytics, many of the traditional partnerships with Aboriginal communities relating to employment and career pathways are likely to be challenged. The paper explores how digital trends are affecting, and are likely to affect, Indigenous communities in their partnerships with oil and gas organisations. Workplace roles and activities are evolving in our increasingly digitised world, causing a perceived threat to employment for minority groups such as Indigenous communities. In order to ensure the ongoing presence of opportunities for Indigenous workers in the ‘future of work’, oil and gas organisations will need to augment digital technologies to cater for and enhance existing and future roles. This paper presents a framework for Indigenous communities, governments, oil and gas operators and service providers to embrace digitisation and create sustainable relationships. An approach is considered to engage with Indigenous communities with objectives of executing on their Reconciliation Action Plans and addressing culture and employment challenges that arise through digitisation. The framework positions oil and gas operators and service providers to pivot themselves not only to sustain, but also to enhance Indigenous employment opportunities in a digital workplace. Digitisation is here, but with the right approach it can positively affect and shape partnerships between oil and gas organisations and Indigenous communities.

Digital innovation in subsea integrity management

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Ricky Thethi ◽  
Dharmik Vadel ◽  
Mark Haning ◽  
Elizabeth Tellier
Keyword(s):  
Domain Knowledge ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Cost Efficiencies ◽  
Exploration And Production ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Offshore Oil And Gas ◽  
Dynamic Structures

Since the 2014 oil-price downturn, the offshore oil and gas industry has accelerated implementation of digital technologies to drive cost efficiencies for exploration and production operations. The upstream offshore sector comprises many interfacing disciplines such as subsurface, drilling and completions, facilities and production operations. Digital initiatives in subsurface imaging, drilling of subsea wells and topsides integrity have been well publicised within the industry. Integrity of the subsea infrastructure is one area that is currently playing catch up in the digital space and lends itself well for data computational efficiencies that artificial-intelligence technologies provide, to reduce cost and lower the risk of subsea equipment downtime. This paper details digital technologies employed in the area of subsea integrity management to meet the objectives of centralising access to critical integrity data, automating workflows to collect and assess data, and using machine learning to perform more accurate and faster engineering analysis with large volumes of field-measured data. A comparison of a typical subsea field is presented using non-digital and digital approaches to subsea integrity management (IM). The comparison demonstrates where technologies such as digital twins for dynamic structures, and auto anomaly detection by using image recognition algorithms can be deployed to provide a step change in the quality of subsea integrity data coming from field. It is demonstrated how the use of a smart IM approach, combined with strong domain knowledge in subsea engineering, can lead to cost efficiencies in operating subsea assets.

Creating the circular advantage for the oil and gas industry

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 585
Author(s):  
Christopher Coldrick ◽  
Rowan Fenn ◽  
David Sahota
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Repair Process ◽  
Materials Management ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Management Processes ◽  
Oil And Gas Companies ◽  
The Impact

Maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) materials typically represent 15–20% of the operating costs for a mature oil and gas asset. Of this, a substantial proportion is comprised of high-value repairable equipment such as motors, compressors and pumps. This equipment is often at bottlenecks in the production process and so the impact of materials cost on profitability is magnified by the production ramifications of an outage. Effective management of this equipment is key to the sustainable, profitable operation of any oil and gas asset, and is key to improving the competitiveness of the Australian industry. Oil and gas companies are adopting a variety of models to handle the repair process, with varying degrees of success. Challenges include: poor materials availability and lack of traceability; complex infield materials management processes resulting in costly wastages; difficulty in managing consistency, suitability and specifications of repairs; high cost for those undertaking the repairs; and, correct allocation of responsibility and risk in the materials management process. Developed in collaboration with Australian oil and gas operators, with input from case studies outside the oil and gas industry, this extended abstract discusses the roles and opportunities for the circular economy in helping companies to meet their sustainability and profitability targets. Using several real-life examples, it makes recommendations for vendors, service providers and operators that can have material impact on the profitability of the industry.

Financing alternatives in a changing gas landscape

2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 516
Author(s):  
James MacGinley ◽  
Brad Calleja
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Project Finance ◽  
Export Credit ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Development ◽  
Credit Agency ◽  
Global Banks

In recent years, Australia has gone through an unprecedented expansion in its oil and gas industry. The demand for capital has been enormous and has resulted in some of the largest project debt financings globally. In the coming years, the funding requirement will change dramatically as projects reach completion; become cash-flow positive; and, owners changing their funding structure from project finance debt to lower cost, lower covenant corporate debt. The development of a number of Australia’s largest oil and gas projects during the past five years coincided with a tightening of capital from the traditional project finance market. This lead to the emergence of export credit agency financing as an integral component of project development. During the past year, however, re-capitalisation of global banks are now re-entering the Australian market and are driving competition and increasing liquidity. This extended abstract covers a review of the funding approaches taken on major Australian LNG projects, including lessons from the funding of CSG projects that may be relevant to other new development markets such as shale gas. It also draws on historical lessons of funding new technologies and provide insight about funding of the next wave of LNG development: floating LNG. The National Australia Bank is one of the largest resources project finance banks globally and is well positioned to provide APPEA’s delegates with relevant insight about the future of debt funding in the oil and gas industry.

History and Evolution of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana: Worker Perspectives

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Austin ◽  
Thomas McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Early Results ◽  
History Of ◽  
Offshore Oil And Gas ◽  
Offshore Oil ◽  
Southern Louisiana

The history of the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico is one of both progressive and punctuated development. New technologies, forms of work organization, and regulatory regimes have all combined over the past seventy years to influence the evolution of this industry. This paper reports early results of a multiyear, multi-team effort to document this history and its impacts on southern Louisiana. It focuses on the work of one team, applied anthropologists from the University of Arizona, to capture the history from the perspectives of the workers and local entrepreneurs who made this industry happen.

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