Ageing FPSOs present naval architect with GL – installed March 2000 in 90m potential safety challenges that the oil & gas industry is only now coming to terms with, according to GL Noble Denton. ‘There have been over 200 floating production system deployments, some of which were tanker conversions,’ Lutz Wittenberg, GL Noble Denton EVP Europe told delegates to last month’s ‘Human, system and ageing effects on FPSO integrity’ forum in Aberdeen. ‘These vessels are now facing “ageing” issues with concerns over safety relating to asset integrity that goes beyond traditional practice in the offshore sector.’
Many of those systems are reaching the middle or end of their design lives, and rising demand is forcing operators to confront the challenges of extending the life of assets, said Martin Brown, an Aberdeen-based consultant Noble Denton. The vessels are technically complex, Brown added, and the industry has a shortage of skilled workers needed to operate and maintain the growing FPSO fleet.
As producing assets, FPSO maintenance and reconfiguration is generally done offshore rather than in dry dock, Wittenberg pointed out. But restricted crew quarter space inhibited the amount of maintenance that could be done while a vessel is on station. Early intervention and maintenance programmes, while costly in the short term, can stave of far more expensive problems down the road, he warned.
Ian Williams, an independent marine consultant representing Wood Group, which provides operations and maintenance services to Hess’ Triton FPSO of water in UK North Sea block 20/21 – said ageing issues revealed during the vessel’s inspection after five years of operation would not normally be detected in a tanker inside ten years’ service.
Wood Group and Hess implemented a vessel integrity program to assess and plan for ageing issues, Williams said.
Earlier this year the UK’s Health & Safety Executive launched a campaign to address ageing onshore and offshore oil & gas infrastructure. Age, commented HSE operations manager Howard Harte, is not ‘about how old the asset is, but how much the operator knows about the asset and how its condition changes over time, taking into account corrosion, modifications, obsolescence or other process or operational changes’. RM
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