The intelligent monitoring and evaluation of the psychophysiological state of the workers employed on offshore oil and gas platforms

Oil and gas companies have an urgent need for technologies that provide complete and reliable information about the actual state of health and safety of personnel. To solve this problem, the article proposes a concept solution for the development of a system monitoring of the psychophysiological health of workers employed on offshore oil platforms. The concept is based on a person-centered approach and allows monitoring of health of employees simultaneously linking them to the context of the environment. The urgency of the problem is confirmed by statistical data, according to which workers in the oil and gas industry are 8 times more likely to get injured. The article analyzes the specific features of the professional activity of the workers employed on offshore oil platforms and shows that the deterioration of their health and psychological condition due to the long-term “sea environment” is unavoidable. It offers to develop an intelligent system for monitoring the psychophysiological condition of workers employed on offshore oil platforms and to assess its suitability for their position with the reference to the Cattell test and fuzzy patterns recognition. The development and systematic operation of such a system may timely detect undesirable consequences for the health status of workers employed on offshore oil platforms and prevent wrong decisions due to the “human factor”

A CFD Analysis of Decommissioned Oil Platforms Jackets on the Brazilian Coast

Every facility reaches the last phase in its life cycle, which is decommissioning. Since the last decade, this subject has been gaining importance in Brazil’s offshore oil and gas companies. For jacket type rigs, one of the methods widely applied after idling the production is the conversion of these structures into artificial reefs (ARs). There are several critical aspects for choosing the best strategy for cutting and sinking a platform jacket, ensuring the success of an AR from a biological point of view. One of them is the influence of marine currents and their fluid-structure interaction which, by maximizing local upwelling and back vortex effects, favours the growth of aggregated flora and fauna. This study consists in the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques for studying the marine flow around a disassembled and sunk jacket in the seabed for the purpose of converting it into an artificial reef. An FVM (Finite Volume Method) from a commercial software (most recent version of ANSYS FLUENT®) is applied with the upwind scheme. A k-ε turbulence model on steady state is chosen. Field data about Brazilian coastal currents are collected and analysed from the amount of information available on a Brazilian Navy's meteoceanographic program. Next, different combinations of cutting and sinking a jacket are studied, always keeping a minimum 55m free water column. The objective is to verify where the formation of local upwelling regions - that is, where the vertical velocity component reaches values equal or greater than 10% of the magnitude of the free flow velocity - is more significant, without decreasing back eddy formation. It is observed that the dismemberment of the jacket with the positioning of its parts in an increasing height sequence in the direction of the prevailing current is favourable to generate local upwelling while tipping the structure at 90° to the prevailing current results in the most voluminous back eddy region.

The Memories of Our Future: The Memories of Maūi

<p>This thesis proposes a way to re-inhabit and transform the adverse identity of an old offshore oil and gas platform. Located 35 kilometers off the West Coast of Taranaki, New Zealand, the Māui A Platform (also known as MPA) is transformed in this thesis design investigation into an Environmental Centre, a living retreat for ‘children’ (in fact, for adults who will be encouraged in the design to see life through the eyes of children). The intention is to generate knowledge and awareness about the environment. The Māui A and Māui B offshore oil and gas platforms are nearing the end of their economic lifespan. Globally, the current most common decommissioning method of oil platforms involves the use of explosives at the base of the jacket. The structure is then towed to shore and dismantled. The explosives leave scars not only on the landscape the platforms once inhabited; they critically damage the surrounding marine ecology, vast numbers of marine species. This is of severe concern for the marine life and ecosystems surrounding the Māui A & Māui B Platforms as they are located in an extremely sensitive marine area where over 30 percent of the world’s cetacean species inhabit or through which they frequently migrate. Only two of these marine mammal species are not listed as ‘species of concern’ in the New Zealand Threat Classification list. The future of these platforms does not need to cause more adversity to the environment, but rather can regenerate it. By re-purposing rather than exploding and dismantling these structures, this thesis aims to propose a way to re-inhabit the Māui A Platform and transform it into an educational retreat that enables further awareness, reconciliation, restoration, and protection of marine systems, environment, and threatened marine species. This thesis explores opportunities to create a closed circuit system as a means of providing food, fresh water, water treatment and energy for the platform. To achieve this regenerative solution in ways that will resonate with those who visit the Māui A Platform, this project enters the realm of the imagination. The imagination is fundamental to learning - hence the proposition that this design be framed as both mythological and experiential. Narrative design – story telling – is explored as a tool to connect sustainable awareness and consciousness as a means to help educate the beneficiaries of this world – our ‘children’. To encourage the adult visitors to fully recognise that the beneficiaries are indeed our children, the thesis investigation will design the new Environmental Centre through the eyes of the child. As a tool to enhance the historic narrative of the site and context, the design strategically frames traces of important or unnoticed elements or equipment of the Māui A Platform. In order to be understood and engaged with by ‘children’, this project enters the realm of the imagination enabling the design to be both mythological and experiential.</p>

The Memories of Our Future: The Memories of Maūi

<p>This thesis proposes a way to re-inhabit and transform the adverse identity of an old offshore oil and gas platform. Located 35 kilometers off the West Coast of Taranaki, New Zealand, the Māui A Platform (also known as MPA) is transformed in this thesis design investigation into an Environmental Centre, a living retreat for ‘children’ (in fact, for adults who will be encouraged in the design to see life through the eyes of children). The intention is to generate knowledge and awareness about the environment. The Māui A and Māui B offshore oil and gas platforms are nearing the end of their economic lifespan. Globally, the current most common decommissioning method of oil platforms involves the use of explosives at the base of the jacket. The structure is then towed to shore and dismantled. The explosives leave scars not only on the landscape the platforms once inhabited; they critically damage the surrounding marine ecology, vast numbers of marine species. This is of severe concern for the marine life and ecosystems surrounding the Māui A & Māui B Platforms as they are located in an extremely sensitive marine area where over 30 percent of the world’s cetacean species inhabit or through which they frequently migrate. Only two of these marine mammal species are not listed as ‘species of concern’ in the New Zealand Threat Classification list. The future of these platforms does not need to cause more adversity to the environment, but rather can regenerate it. By re-purposing rather than exploding and dismantling these structures, this thesis aims to propose a way to re-inhabit the Māui A Platform and transform it into an educational retreat that enables further awareness, reconciliation, restoration, and protection of marine systems, environment, and threatened marine species. This thesis explores opportunities to create a closed circuit system as a means of providing food, fresh water, water treatment and energy for the platform. To achieve this regenerative solution in ways that will resonate with those who visit the Māui A Platform, this project enters the realm of the imagination. The imagination is fundamental to learning - hence the proposition that this design be framed as both mythological and experiential. Narrative design – story telling – is explored as a tool to connect sustainable awareness and consciousness as a means to help educate the beneficiaries of this world – our ‘children’. To encourage the adult visitors to fully recognise that the beneficiaries are indeed our children, the thesis investigation will design the new Environmental Centre through the eyes of the child. As a tool to enhance the historic narrative of the site and context, the design strategically frames traces of important or unnoticed elements or equipment of the Māui A Platform. In order to be understood and engaged with by ‘children’, this project enters the realm of the imagination enabling the design to be both mythological and experiential.</p>

EXAMINING THE INTERNATIONAL LAW RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENCE: THE CASE OF RUSSIA AND GEORGIA; ISRAEL AND GAZA

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter establishes the doctrine of the prohibition of the use of force amongst member states of the UN. Article 51 lays down exceptions to this rule in terms of the fact that there can be an individual and/or collective use of force in self-defence in the case of an armed attack. This individual or collective use of force is permitted to continue until such a time as the Security Council takes such actions as are necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has further confirmed this prohibition of the use of force in the Nicaragua case, Congo v Uganda and Oil Platforms cases. This area ofinternational law has seen a lot of discussions and developments over the years. The purpose of this article is to examine the efficacy of the use of force between Russia and Georgia; and Israel and Gaza in 2008. It would be examined if these armed attacks are justifiable by the doctrine of self-defence and the recent developments in the field in international law, or if they in fact constitute a breach of the international law prohibition on the use of force.

Estimation of the bitrate and complexity of spectral image transformation algorithms in marine vessel surveillance systems

Исследуется процесс развития современных систем видеонаблюдения на морском транспорте, а также затронуты некоторые приложения и особенности передачи изображений и способы повышающие ее эффективность. Системы морского наблюдения могут использоваться для повышения безопасности портов, аэропортов, торговых и военных судов, а также для контроля морского движения в портах и каналах, защиты прибрежных и нефтяных платформ. Камеры являются одним из основных датчиков этих систем. Они дешевы и дополняют другие типы датчиков. В данной работе представлен результаты исследований по использованию алгоритм быстрого преобразования Фурье с децимацией во времени при размерности-22´22 при обработке морских сюжетов, полученных из различных камер наблюдения за крымским мостом. Предложенный алгоритм получен путем применения двухэтапного подхода к декомпозиции и внедрению эффективной методики группировки поворотных множителей Фурье-преобразования в комплексной форме. Анализируется арифметическая сложность предлагаемого алгоритма и вычисляется количество действительных умножений и сложений для различных размеров преобразования и изображений морских судов. Кроме того, выполнена оценка скорости передачи и сложности обработки морских изображений для различных форматов и разрешения. The process of development of modern video surveillance systems in maritime transport is investigated, as well as some applications and features of image transmission and methods that increase its efficiency are touched upon. Maritime surveillance systems can be used to improve the security of ports, airports, commercial and military vessels, as well as to control sea traffic in ports and channels, protect coastal and oil platforms. Cameras are one of the main sensors of these systems. They are cheap and complement other types of sensors. This paper presents the results of research on the use of the fast Fourier transform algorithm with decimation in time at a dimension of-22´22 when processing marine scenes obtained from various surveillance cameras for the Crimean bridge. The proposed algorithm is obtained by applying a two-stage approach to decomposition and implementing an effective method for grouping the rotary multipliers of the Fourier transform in a complex form. The arithmetic complexity of the proposed algorithm is analyzed and the number of real multiplications and additions for various sizes of transformation and images of sea vessels is calculated. In addition, the estimation of the transmission speed and complexity of processing marine images for various formats and resolutions was performed.

Time–Frequency Extraction Model Based on Variational Mode Decomposition and Hilbert–Huang Transform for Offshore Oil Platforms Using MIMU Data

Time–frequency extraction is a key issue to understand structural symmetry of dynamic responses of offshore oil platforms for early warning during drilling operations. Current popular methods for signal characteristics extraction can only obtain the attributes with a single dimension or poor precision. To solve this, a combined Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) and variational mode decomposition (VMD) method is proposed to extract multidimensional dynamic response characteristics of time, frequency, and energy of offshore oil platforms. Based on the extracted time–frequency–energy information, the frequency-domain integration approach (FDIA) can be applied to calculate the displacement using accelerometer in the micro inertial measurement unit (MIMU). A complementary filtering algorithm was designed to measure the torsion angle of platforms using six degrees of freedom data from the MIMU to obtain the torsion angle information. The performance of the proposed method was validated using a series of simulation shaking-table tests and a field test conducted on an offshore oil platform at Dongying City, Shandong Province, China. During the field test, seven out of eight collisions were detected in the frequency range 5 Hz to 12 Hz. The intensity of the fifth collision was the highest, and the maximum displacement obtained by the accelerometer was 6 mm. In addition, the results show a correlation between the axes of the accelerometer and gyroscope, and their combination can measure a torsion angle up to 1.1°.

Telemedicine applied to offshore medical emergencies: impacts on a Brazilian oil industry

Background The study aims to analyse the impact of the use of advanced telemedicine resources in the management of medical emergencies on offshore oil platforms of a major Brazilian operator during the period 2018–2019. Methods 38 maritime platforms were analysed, totalling a sample of 5992 workers. Exploratory data analysis, adherence test to normal distribution (Ryan-Joiner normality test) and linear correlation test (Spearman’s rho) were used to characterize the data. 5 groups were defined, 1 offshore platform with advanced telemedicine resources (reference group) and 4 platforms without this support. Each group had data on the monthly amount of disembarkation due to health reasons, in 2018 and 2019, through common flights (1087 and 1207) and aeromedical evacuations (68 and 126), respectively. Finally, hypothesis testing was carried out for two independent samples, to compare the average landings of the reference group with the other groups. Results The reference group presented average landings for common flights lower than those of the other groups in 2018. In 2019, presented average landings for common flights lower than those of three groups and statistically equal to that of a group. In 2018 and 2019, the reference group presented statistically equal averages (P-value &gt; α = 0.05) of landings due to aeromedical evacuations. Conclusions Despite the possibility of other contributing factors, such as health management of each group and operation time of the platforms, this study allows us to conclude that, in 2018 and 2019, the group of maritime platforms with advanced telemedicine resources obtained, in general, lower average landings due to health reasons.