The Energy Transition, lessons learned from other heavy industries and the opportunities they present for Oil and Gas Operators demonstrated by associated case studies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonidas Theodorou ◽  
Susan McGeachie ◽  
John Gill ◽  
Kerry McKenna
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-235
Author(s):  
Mark Leonard ◽  
◽  
Jean Pisani-Ferry ◽  
Jeremy Shapiro ◽  
Simone Tagliapietra ◽  
...  

The European Green Deal is a plan to decarbonise the EU economy by 2050, revolutionise the EU’s energy system, profoundly transform the economy and inspire efforts to combat climate change. But the plan will also have profound geopolitical repercussions. The Green Deal will affect geopolitics through its impact on the EU energy balance and global markets; on oil and gas-producing countries in the EU neighbourhood; on European energy security; and on global trade patterns, notably via the carbon border adjustment mechanism. At least some of these changes are likely to impact partner countries adversely. The EU needs to wake up to the consequences abroad of its domestic decisions. It should prepare to help manage the geopolitical aspects of the European Green Deal. Relationships with important neighbourhood countries such as Russia and Algeria, and with global players including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia, are central to this effort, which can be structured around seven actions: 1) Help neighbouring oil and gas-exporting countries manage the repercussions of the European Green Deal. The EU should engage with these countries to foster their economic diversification, including into renewable energy and green hydrogen that could in the future be exported to Europe; 2) Improve the security of critical raw materials supply and limit dependence, first and foremost on China. Essential measures include greater supply diversification, increased recycling volumes and substitution of critical materials; 3) Work with the US and other partners to establish a ‘climate club’ whose members will apply similar carbon border adjustment measures. All countries, including China, would be welcome to join if they commit to abide by the club's objectives and rules; 4) Become a global standard-setter for the energy transition, particularly in hydrogen and green bonds. Requiring compliance with strict environmental regulations as a condition to access the EU market will be strong encouragement to go green for all countries; 5) Internationalise the European Green Deal by mobilising the EU budget, the EU Recovery and Resilience Fund, and EU development policy; 6) Promote global coalitions for climate change mitigation, for example through a global coalition for the permafrost, which would fund measures to contain the permafrost thaw; 7) Promote a global platform on the new economics of climate action to share lessons learned and best practices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Damir Tadjiev

Abstract Dynamic flexible risers are complex engineered systems, which provide a connection between topside (normally floating) facilities and subsea pipeline infrastructure on offshore oilfields. Such systems require the use of ancillary equipment to ensure the riser’s correct configuration is maintained throughout the service life. Industry experience shows that the integrity management of riser ancillary equipment is not always comprehensive, and failure of such equipment is one of the causes of premature removal of flexible risers from service. This article presents some case studies from the operational experience of dynamic flexible risers by an operator in the UK North Sea covering a period of approximately 20 years. The case studies look at the anomalies identified in service by general visual inspection (GVI) using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and the lessons learned. Some of the anomalies, had they not been identified and addressed promptly, could have resulted in costly repairs, which demonstrates the importance of inspecting the ancillary equipment of flexible risers as a part of the riser integrity management strategy. The challenges associated with integrity management of ancillary equipment of dynamic flexible risers are also discussed. The case studies presented in this article demonstrate that ROV GVI is an effective method for identifying installation and in-service anomalies related to flexible riser ancillary equipment. The purpose of this article is to share lessons learned with the wider offshore oil and gas community. It is also believed that the information presented in this article may provide useful information to other users of dynamic flexible riser systems when developing and/or implementing their subsea pipelines integrity management programs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Holmes ◽  
Cristina Ruscitto ◽  
Sarah Booth

Abstract As in any shiftworking industry, fatigue poses a hazard to workers within the oil and gas industry, irrespective of job role and site location. In order to demonstrate adherence to health and safety regulations, operators can be expected to manage shift patterns and hours of work, such that they are appropriate and do not result in unnecessary levels of fatigue that may reduce the safety of the operation. Reliance on hours of work limitations (for example the European Working Time Directive) or industry normalised working patterns may no longer be considered sufficient to ensure that the risk posed by fatigue is appropriately managed. This paper presents how a scientific approach can be applied and adapted to suit the context and the populations being studied in order to answer specific operational questions and provide tailored fatigue risk mitigations. It describes a method by which site and job role fatigue levels can be assessed, in order for appropriate controls to be implemented. It will use case studies to illustrate how data collection methods are tailored to reflect specific operational environments. Data collection is particularly important in parts of the industry where common shift arrangements differ from those which have historically been studied. The method outlines an approach to rigorously assess contributors to fatigue and fatigue levels in an organisation following appropriate scientific methods. Both subjective and objective data are collected, using methods such as fatigue and sleepiness scales, sleep diaries and collection of objective sleep data using validated sleep tracking devices. The approach is specifically tailored to the population of interest – reflecting their shift pattern, and collecting further data on workload, task demand, and operational or location-specific factors (for example travel to site, onsite sleeping facilities, or sea sickness on floating platforms). The method also allows for inferences to be made about the impact of circadian misalignment and shift timing on sleep, performance and mood. The method presented in this paper has been used in field data collection in two very different environments. These studies are used as case studies to examine how the methodology can be tailored to ensure that the collected data are appropriate to the operation being studied, and lessons learned to improve the methods in the future.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1956
Author(s):  
Byung-Yun Son ◽  
Eul-Bum Lee

Korean offshore oil and gas (O&G) mega project contractors have recently suffered massive deficits due to the challenges and risks inherent to the offshore engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of megaprojects. This has resulted in frequent prolonged projects, schedule delay, and consequently significant cost overruns. Existing literature has identified one of the major causes of project delays to be the lack of adequate tools or techniques to diagnose the appropriateness and sufficiency of the contract deadline proposed by project owners prior to signing the contract in the bid. As such, this paper seeks to propose appropriate or correct project durations using the research methodology of text mining for bid documents. With the emergence of ‘big data’ research, text mining has become an acceptable research strategy, having already been utilized in various industries including medicine, legal, and securities. In this study the scope of work (SOW), as a main part of EPC contracts is analyzed using text mining processes in a sequence of pre-processing, structuring, and normalizing. Lessons learned, collected from 13 executed off shore EPC projects, are then used to reinforce the findings from said process. For this study, critical terms (CT), representing the root of past problems, are selected from the reports of lessons learned. The occurrence of the CT in the SOW are then counted and converted to a schedule delay risk index (SDRI) for the sample projects. The measured SDRI of each sample project are then correlated to the project’s actual schedule delay via regression analysis. The resultant regression model is entitled the schedule delay estimate model (SDEM) for this paper based on the case studies. Finally, the developed SDEM’s accuracy is validated through its use to predict schedule delays on recently executed projects with the findings being compared with actual schedule performance. This study found the relationship between the SDRI, frequency of CTs in the SOW, and delays to be represented by the regression formula. Through assessing its performance with respect to the 13th project, said formula was found to have an accuracy of 81%. As can be seen, this study found that more CTs in the SOW leads to a higher tendency for a schedule delay. Therefore, a higher project SDRI implies that there are more issues on projects which required more time to resolve them. While the low number of projects used to develop the model reduces its generalizability, the text mining research methodology used to quantitatively estimate project schedule delay can be generalized and applied to other industries where contractual documents and information regarding lessons learned are available.


Author(s):  
Pavel Layus ◽  
Paul Kah ◽  
Viktor Gezha

The Arctic region is expected to play an extremely prominent role in the future of the oil and gas industry as growing demand for natural resources leads to greater exploitation of a region that holds about 25% of the world’s oil and gas reserves. It has become clear that ensuring the necessary reliability of Arctic industrial structures is highly dependent on the welding processes used and the materials employed. The main challenge for welding in Arctic conditions is prevention of the formation of brittle fractures in the weld and base material. One mitigating solution to obtain sufficiently low-transition temperatures of the weld is use of a suitable welding process with properly selected parameters. This work provides a comprehensive review with experimental study of modified submerged arc welding processes used for Arctic applications, such as narrow gap welding, multi-wire welding, and welding with metal powder additions. Case studies covered in this article describe welding of Arctic steels such as X70 12.7-mm plate by multi-wire welding technique. Advanced submerged arc welding processes are compared in terms of deposition rate and welding process operational parameters, and the advantages and disadvantages of each process with respect to low-temperature environment applications are listed. This article contributes to the field by presenting a comprehensive state-of-the-art review and case studies of the most common submerged arc welding high deposition modifications. Each modification is reviewed in detail, facilitating understanding and assisting in correct selection of appropriate welding processes and process parameters.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Turner-McGrievy ◽  
Danielle E. Jake-Schoffman ◽  
Camelia Singletary ◽  
Marquivieus Wright ◽  
Anthony Crimarco ◽  
...  

Background. Wearable physical activity (PA) trackers are becoming increasingly popular for intervention and assessment in health promotion research and practice. The purpose of this article is to present lessons learned from four studies that used commercial PA tracking devices for PA intervention or assessment, present issues encountered with their use, and provide guidelines for determining which tools to use. Method. Four case studies are presented that used PA tracking devices (iBitz, Zamzee, FitBit Flex and Zip, Omron Digital Pedometer, Sensewear Armband, and MisFit Flash) in the field—two used the tools for intervention and two used the tools as assessment methods. Results. The four studies presented had varying levels of success with using PA devices and experienced several issues that impacted their studies, such as companies that went out of business, missing data, and lost devices. Percentage ranges for devices that were lost were 0% to 29% and was 0% to 87% for those devices that malfunctioned or lost data. Conclusions. There is a need for low-cost, easy-to-use, accurate PA tracking devices to use as both intervention and assessment tools in health promotion research related to PA.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document