Risk-Based Maintenance Strategy for Underwater Assets

Industry:
Oil & Gas Industry

Location:
Offshore

Type of contract:
Project consultancy fee, travel & reimbursements

Summary:

Transfield Worley Solutions conducted a risk analysis of an ageing oil platform structure to reduce total maintenance expenditure. The platform was being maintained under a prescriptive and repetitive certification regime that required detailed underwater inspection every five years, at significant cost. The challenge was to reduce the maintenance expenditure whilst ensuring that the level of risk to personnel, the environment and the integrity of the asset were within acceptable limits. Transfield Worley Solutions was able to offer comprehensive professional and technical services, calling on broad experience across several industries, to assess the client’s maintenance strategy. By applying our combined knowledge of the best practices in asset management, maintenance engineering and risk assessment, Transfield Worley Solutions was able to tailor the review criteria and consequent recommendations around the specific needs of the client.

Scope & Approach:

The approach adopted by Transfield Worley Solutions was to use state of the art methods in structural reliability analysis to optimise the underwater maintenance inspection program. A major driver in the maintenance strategy was the need to maximise cost benefits whilst ensuring technical integrity of the asset. The strategy was also used to prepare other underwater campaign scopes of work, and became the largest implementation of risk-based maintenance in the Australasian region at the time.

Outcomes & Benefits:

The key benefits to the client were:

• savings in the order of three times the routine inspection cost over a five-year period without any increase to the overall risk of the platform
• project savings of nearly 30 times the annual inspection cost over the 30-year life of the platform