ARPEL/EPGEO: Regional Geotechnics Project — Good Practices in Pipeline Integrity Management to Face Geohazards

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Hernán Aristizábal Ceballos ◽  
Hugo Alberto García García
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Technical Requirement ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
Central System ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Tropical Areas ◽  
New Guidelines

Due to the importance for the Oil and Gas Industry to have a technical document that consolidates the knowledge on management of geohazards for Latin America, the Geotechnics Project Team (EPGEO under its acronym in Spanish) of the Regional Association of Oil, Gas and Biofuels Sector Companies in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARPEL) developed the “Guidelines for Monitoring and Inspection of Pipeline Integrity Management to Face Geohazards” between 2014 and 2016. These guidelines contain the experience of the different operators in the region, given the highly-complex geological-geotechnical pipeline routes (due to the mountain range of the Andes in South America or the Central System in Central America), as well as the high technical requirement derived from the dynamics of the triggering agents in equatorial and tropical areas. In this respect, this document presents the main results of such consolidation and its dissemination, some relevant aspects to be taken into account in interdisciplinary works with reference to third parties, as well as the new guidelines that the EPGEO has proposed to develop that complement the management of geohazards in a Pipeline Transportation System (PTS).

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.

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.

Logic Sequence Prevents Launching Devices Downhole Out of Sequence

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo de Lepeleire ◽  
Nicolas Rogozinski ◽  
Hank Rogers ◽  
Daniel Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Logic Control ◽  
Drilling Operations ◽  
Common Operation ◽  
Increasing Demand

Within the oil and gas industry, significant costs are often incurred by the operating company during the well-construction phase of drilling operations. Specifically, the operators cost to drill a well can cost tens or hundreds of millions of USD. One specific area where significant changes in drilling operations have occurred is in the offshore environment, specifically operations from mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs). With the ever-increasing demand for oil and gas, operators globally have increased drilling budgets in an effort to meet forecasted demand. However, the increased budgets are often eroded or offset by increasing drilling costs. Therefore, operators are continually in search of new technology, processes, or procedures to help improve drilling operations and overall operational efficiencies. One Latin America operator identified a common operation as a possible area where operational cost could be easily reduced through the implementation of systems that allow the manipulation of valve manifolds remotely. Additionally, operating such valve manifolds remotely enhanced operational safety for personnel, which was an equally important consideration. This paper details the evaluation of existing equipment and procedures and a process used to develop a new remote-control system using a machine logic control (MLC) that has been designed, built, tested, and deployed successfully on MODUs operating in Latin America.

Towards Implementing Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) Policy for Offshore Blowout Preventer (BOP) System

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobiloba Elusakin ◽  
Mahmood Shafiee ◽  
Tosin Adedipe
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Condition Based Maintenance ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Training Requirements ◽  
Blowout Preventer ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Maintenance Personnel ◽  
Oil And Gas Companies

Abstract With the steadily growing demand for energy in the world, oil and gas companies are finding themselves facing increasing capital and operating costs. To ensure the economic viability of investments and improve the safety of operations, oil and gas companies are promoting their asset integrity management (AIM) systems. In the past, the oil and gas industry adopted reactive maintenance regimes, which involved recertification, testing and repair of faulty equipment while trying to achieve minimum downtime. As technology becomes more affordable, operators have been able to carry out improved fault diagnosis, prognosis and maintenance optimisation. As a result of this, condition-based maintenance (CBM) is being adopted more and more as the preeminent maintenance regime for oil and gas equipment. The blowout preventer (BOP) is one of the most expensive and safety critical drilling equipment in the oil and gas industry. However, there have been very few studies and best practices about how to develop a CBM policy and what specific monitoring techniques and devices will be required to implement it for the BOP system. This paper proposes a V-model based architecture for designing a CBM policy in BOP systems. As a result of the model proposed, gaps in implementation are identified and all the hardware, software and training requirements for implementing the CBM solution in BOP systems will be outlined in detail. Our proposed CBM framework will help BOP operators and maintenance personnel make cost savings through less repairs and replacements and minimal downtime.

ISO Offshore Structures Standards

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Smedley ◽  
Pat O’Connor ◽  
Richard Snell
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Steel Structures ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Offshore Structures ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Technical Content ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Specific Assessment

The ISO 19900 series of Standards address the design, construction, transportation, installation, integrity management and assessment of offshore structures. Offshore structural types covered by ISO include: bottom-founded ‘fixed’ steel structures; fixed concrete structures; floating structures such as monohull FPSOs, semi-submersibles and spar platforms; arctic structures; and site-specific assessment of jack-up platforms. All the fundamental ISO Offshore Structural Standards have now been published representing a major achievement for the Oil and Gas Industry and representative National Standards Organizations. A summary of the background to achieving this milestone is presented in this paper. In parallel, other Codes and Standards bodies such as API, CEN, CSA, Norsok and the Classification Societies are looking to harmonize some, or all, of their Offshore Structures Standards in-line with ISO, wherever this is desirable and practical. API, in particular, have been pro-active in reviewing and revising their Offshore Recommended Practices (RPs) to maximize consistency with ISO, including revising the scope and content of a number of existing API RPs, adopting ISO language, and embracing technical content. Given API’s long heritage of Offshore Standards it is not surprising that this remains very much a mutual effort between ISO and API with much in ISO Standards building on existing API design practice. Now published, those involved in developing and maintaining the ISO 19900 series of Standards have to deal with both new and existing challenges, including encouraging wider awareness and adoption of these Standards, enhancing the harmonization effort, ensuring technical advances are captured in timely revisions to these Standards, and most pressing to ensure that the next generation of offshore engineers are encouraged to participate in the long-term development of the Standards that they will be using and questioning. This paper is one of a series of papers at this OMAE Conference that outline the technical content and future strategy of the ISO Offshore Structures Standards.

Self Directed Integrity Assessment of Non-Piggable Pipelines

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish Khera ◽  
Rajesh Uprety ◽  
Bidyut B. Baniah
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Internal Corrosion ◽  
Integrity Assessment ◽  
Regulatory Standards ◽  
The Us ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
External Corrosion

The responsibility for managing an asset safely, efficiently and to optimize productivity lies solely with the pipeline operators. To achieve these objectives, operators are implementing comprehensive pipeline integrity management programs. These programs may be driven by a country’s pipeline regulator or in many cases may be “self-directed” by the pipeline operator especially in countries where pipeline regulators do not exist. A critical aspect of an operator’s Integrity Management Plan (IMP) is to evaluate the history, limitations and the key threats for each pipeline and accordingly select the most appropriate integrity tool. The guidelines for assessing piggable lines has been well documented but until recently there was not much awareness for assessment of non-piggable pipelines. A lot of these non-piggable pipelines transverse through high consequence areas and usually minimal historic records are available for these lines. To add to the risk factor, usually these lines also lack any baseline assessment. The US regulators, that is Office of Pipeline Safety had recognized the need for establishment of codes and standards for integrity assessment of all pipelines more than a decade ago. This led to comprehensive mandatory rules, standards and codes for the US pipeline operators to follow regardless of the line being piggable or non-piggable. In India the story has been a bit different. In the past few years, our governing body for development of self-regulatory standards for the Indian oil and gas industry that is Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) recognized a need for development of a standard specifically for integrity assessment of non-piggable pipelines. The standard was formalized and accepted by the Indian Ministry of Petroleum in September 2013 as OISD 233. OISD 233 standard is based on assessing the time dependent threats of External Corrosion (EC) and Internal Corrosion (IC) through applying the non-intrusive techniques of “Direct Assessment”. The four-step, iterative DA (ECDA, ICDA and SCCDA) process requires the integration of data from available line histories, multiple indirect field surveys, direct examination and the subsequent post assessment of the documented results. This paper presents the case study where the Indian pipeline operators took a self-initiative and implemented DA programs for prioritizing the integrity assessment of their most critical non-piggable pipelines even before the OISD 233 standard was established. The paper also looks into the relevance of the standard to the events and other case studies following the release of OISD 233.

Asset integrity management: offshore installations challenges

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayang Kusumawardhani ◽  
Rajesh Kumar ◽  
Markeset Tore
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Petroleum Industry ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Offshore Installations ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
Gas Market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges facing asset integrity management (AIM) practices in the oil and gas industry, in order to continually develop AIM practices in organisations. The focus is to investigate various challenges in fluctuating oil and gas market conditions, and how organisations can continuously ensure the safety and integrity of their offshore facilities. Design/methodology/approach – AIM challenges were identified by analysing data from literature study, guided interviews and web-based questionnaire with industrial experts in regions in North America, Southeast Asia and Norway. The results are validated through triangulation method with both quantitative and qualitative technique, as well as comparison with other studies. Findings – The paper identifies, analyses and validates the challenges and factors that may impact the management of asset integrity on offshore installations. The challenges were discussed to develop understanding of the root cause and thus aim to resolve underlying issues. Research limitations/implications – The paper focuses on offshore production installations with experts from organisations that have experience in Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Norway fields. The sample of respondents may not represent the entire population; however, the same approach and result can be used in similar topics and conditions. Originality/value – The identified challenges can be used by organisations to resolve underlying AIM challenges, improve their AIM strategy and obtain insights into current AIM practices in the petroleum industry.

EPGEO-ARPEL Latin America Project: Technical Guides on Monitoring and Geohazard Control Works in Pipelines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Oliveros ◽  
Leandro Ivorra ◽  
Jaime Aristizabal
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Regional Association ◽  
Integrity Management ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Technical Solutions ◽  
Oil And Gas Companies

Abstract Since 2004, the Geotechnical Professional Team (EPGEO) from the Regional Association of Oil and Gas Companies in Latin America and the Caribbean (Asociación Regional de Empresas de Petróleo y Gas Natural en Latinoamérica y el Caribe, ARPEL) has been working on a knowledge management-related project for the Oil & Gas industry, consisting in the creation of three technical guides on Pipeline Integrity Management given the occurrence of geohazards in Hydrocarbon Transportation Systems. This initiative comprises the creation of 3 guides related to: i) Guide 1: Monitoring Geohazards for Pipeline Integrity, ii) Guide 2: Geotechnical Mitigation Works in Pipelines, iii) Guide 3: Geotechnical Risk in Pipelines. The EPGEO published Guide 1 in 2016 and made a presentation at the 2017 IPG (IPG2017-2538), while Guide 2 will be completed by 2021. Guide 3 will be created in 2021–2023. This document shows the methodology and contents for preparing the first two guides, focusing on Guide 2, which comprises different alternatives, analyses and technical solutions to the occurrence of geohazards that might affect the integrity of a pipeline transportation system.

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