Real-time monitoring of life extension risk in the offshore oil & gas sector

Abstract

Despite the growing number of frameworks developed to assess and monitor life extension (LE) risk in the offshore oil and gas (O&G) industry, the existing frameworks are restricted to quantifying the probability of risk events resulting from material degradation of critical assets, neglecting human factors. These existing frameworks do not ensure proactive risk mitigation during the LE phase of operation in the O&G industry. To fill this gap, a LE framework combining human reliability analysis and aging probabilistic models is developed to support quick and real-time monitoring of risk associated with the LE phase of operation. The proposed framework consists of accident susceptibility and equipment vulnerability modules. The accident susceptibility module estimates the accident susceptibility index (ASI) while the equipment vulnerability module involves a pre-calculated probabilistic index from aging failure mechanisms which is stored in a database. A “life extension risk index” (LERI) is determined by combining the ASI and equipment vulnerability index (EVI), respectively. An applied case involving a three-phase separator on an offshore O&G installation operating beyond its original design life is used to test the efficacy of the proposed framework. The outcome of the applied case indicates that the framework is capable of supporting LE decision-making in real-time.