Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – DNV GL is working on a pilot project involving remote inspections of three offshore cranes for Aker BP.
The safety inspections concern a box boom pedestal crane on the Valhall Flank West platform in the southern Norwegian North Sea, and two knuckle boom cranes on the Skarv field FPSO in the Norwegian Sea, both as part of annual surveys.
In both cases, crane operators and technicians on the platforms used tablets to take close-up video and pictures based on an agreed checklist of safety functions, shared these with DNV GL’s onshore inspectors.
On Valhall Flank West (normally unmanned) the team inspected NOV’s one-year-old crane, including auto-testing of the automatic overload protection system.
According to DNV GL, it was the first time this had been inspected, along with the structural connections, hydraulic and electrical components, the manual overload protections system, and the brakes.
Similar inspections are under way on two knuckle boom cranes on the Skarv FPSO, 210 km (130 mi) from Sandnessjøen.
Here the task will be to assess how to perform safety-critical tasks remotely without compromising safety of the platform and personnel.
Avoiding the need for round-trips for inspectors to Brønnøysund and onward helicopter travel to Skarv are some of the potential cost savings. The online approach also allowed multiple DNV GL specialists to be connected, who would otherwise have had to travel.
“Using an Automatic Test system with a digital interface significantly reduces risk compared to manual inspections via procedures,” said Svein Harald Hetland, technical authority Lifting, Aker BP.
“The next generation of cranes will be set up with continuous monitoring systems which enables us to move into a predictive maintenance regime. The remote inspection programs will then focus on verification of the entire systems.”
So far this year DNV GL has conducted more than 4,000 remote inspections for the oil and gas industry, including a marine warranty survey of a barge and platform in Senegal and material certification of subsea equipment in China.
10/13/2020
