RAM Analysis of Oil and Gas Production Facilities Operating in the Arctic offshore: Expert Judgements and Operating Conditions

Abstract

The Arctic offshore has a sensitive environment and is associated with a range of harsh operating conditions with considerable year-round variations. Such conditions can adversely affect the reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) of oil and gas (O&G) production facilities in different ways. One of the main challenges in RAM analysis of Arctic offshore O&G facilities is the lack of adequate historical data due to the comparatively limited experience of the O&G industry. The aim of this research is to identify and discuss the key elements of Arctic operating conditions and their effects on RAM performance of O&G production facilities and to develop expert-based models for RAM performance analysis of such facilities operating in the Arctic environment. At the first step, a detailed literature review was conducted to identify different elements of the Arctic offshore environment and their potential impact on RAM performance of O&G production facilities. Thereafter, expert-based models are developed to analyse the RAM performance of O&G production facilities under such effects. The issue of lack of adequate historical data is tackled integrating the data elicited from experts with the historical data obtained from O&G operations and activities in normal-climate regions. In real practice, however, Arctic operating conditions such as weather elements vary on a daily basis. In this regard, accelerated failure time models are adapted to build an availability model capable of reflecting upon such a time-dependency of environmental conditions. Moreover, uncertainties involved in weather conditions are analysed by the integration of time-series approaches in the developed plant availability model. The results of this study illustrate that harsh Arctic operating conditions adversely affect the RAM performance of O&G production facilities, and thus their production levels. It is also shown that the expert-based techniques are useful and powerful tools for RAM modelling of Arctic offshore facilities.