Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – ABB and Britain’s Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) are cooperating on a new non-intrusive inspection (NII) initiative.
The aim is to deliver costs savings of around $500 million/yr to operators on theUK continental shelf (UKCS).
Their focus will be on increasing production efficiency and decreasing opex through lower direct maintenance costs and reduced shutdown periods and production losses associated with asset integrity.
ABB says UKCS operators need support in the transition to non-intrusive methods for identifying the condition of their pressure systems. Existing practice commonly leads to costly interventions and production losses, so the new initiative will attempt to demystify the perceived limitations in adopting NII.
The first phase will involve a base line survey of operators’ use of NII technologies and identification of barriers to change. In addition, the team will validate the overall opportunity for UKCS operators to reduce costs and increase production by applying the technology and methodology across their assets.
Companies from other process industries and in other areas of the world could be co-opted to ensure that best practices are incorporated into the project.
Rebecca Allison, asset integrity solution centre manager at OGTC, said: “Process vessel inspection is a significant contributor to production downtime and operating costs, and involves entering confined spaces and therefore raises risks to personnel.
“The initiative will allow us to identify current practices surrounding NII and provide an opportunity for operators and service companies to utilize existing inspection technologies, identify technology gaps, and importantly increase UKCS adoption of NII.”
02/28/2017
