Changing asset integrity to meet needs of oil and gas industry

The num­ber of float­ing off­shore instal­la­tions (FOIs) and mobile off­shore drilling units (MODUs) is increas­ing as oil and gas reserves are dis­cov­ered in ever-deep­er waters. Cur­rent­ly there are 333 FOIs and 700 MODUs in ser­vice or on order, a 69 per cent increase over the last decade. Many oper­a­tional FOIs and MODUs are based in deep water, on long-life projects with no dry-dock intend­ed for 25 years or more.

EM&I recog­nised the chal­lenges that oper­a­tors and own­ers of these increas­ing­ly com­plex units would have to face to ensure their assets com­plied with safe­ty reg­u­la­tions while opti­mis­ing pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy.

Chief exec­u­tive of the EM&I Group Dan­ny Con­stan­ti­nis believed that fun­da­men­tal changes were need­ed in the way FOIs and MODUs were designed, oper­at­ed, main­tained and inspect­ed to avoid the sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties asso­ci­at­ed with unplanned dry-dock­ing.

“The indus­try has recog­nised cost and lost pro­duc­tion con­se­quences when com­ing off sta­tion for many weeks to dry-dock” he says. “But no one had devel­oped a holis­tic solu­tion that met the require­ments of the oper­a­tors, clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­eties and reg­u­la­tors.

“We have spent the last ten years devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing a com­pre­hen­sive ‘No Dry-dock… Safe­ly’ pack­age. This ensures com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry and clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­ety require­ments, pro­vides our clients with the tools to man­age the integri­ty of their assets while on sta­tion and pro­duc­ing safe­ly for extend­ed peri­ods, and we have reduced the num­ber of peo­ple required to under­take the off­shore ele­ment of the work.”

EM&I has been a best-in-class provider to the oil and gas indus­try for more than 30 years with addi­tion­al cus­tomer demand con­tribut­ing to the company’s growth and geo­graph­ic expan­sion. Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly estab­lished bases in North Amer­i­ca, South-East Asia, Aus­tralia and North­ern Europe, EM&I has addi­tion­al­ly estab­lished bases and won long-term con­tracts in Brazil and West Africa where 43 per cent of the world’s float­ing pro­duc­tion projects are planned.

Mr Con­stan­ti­nis explains the growth of EM&I: “When we start­ed the busi­ness 30 years ago, we set out to be the world’s lead­ing asset integri­ty ser­vice provider and this meant doing things dif­fer­ent­ly. Rather than pro­vid­ing a com­modi­tised ser­vice, we chose to focus on high added val­ue inno­va­tions. While this required greater invest­ment, the growth in rev­enue and prof­its jus­ti­fies our strat­e­gy.”

We have spent the last ten years devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing a com­pre­hen­sive ‘No Dry-dock… Safe­ly’ pack­age

EM&I has always believed that strong part­ner­ships with indus­try and reg­u­la­tors are key foun­da­tions for long-term suc­cess. Joint ven­tures and alliances with Ode­brecht, Stan­tec, Bureau Ver­i­tas and oth­ers have proven the val­ue to both EM&I and their part­ners. EM&I’s lead­er­ship of the HITS (hull inspec­tion tech­niques and strate­gies) joint indus­try project is an exam­ple of how EM&I brought all sec­tors of the indus­try togeth­er to iden­ti­fy chal­lenges and devel­op inno­v­a­tive solu­tions. One chal­lenge was the need to reduce div­er-based inspec­tion of float­ing instal­la­tion hulls which includ­ed float­ing pro­duc­tion and mobile off­shore drilling units.

ODIN™, EM&I’s Diver­less UWILD (under­wa­ter inspec­tion in lieu of dry-dock­ing) is a major part of EM&I’s “No dry-dock” strat­e­gy. David Mort­lock, EM&I’s chief tech­ni­cal offi­cer, explains: “Our Diver­less UWILD method­ol­o­gy changes the way float­ing assets are inspect­ed. We built a val­i­da­tion cen­tre in the UK to demon­strate the new method­ol­o­gy to clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­eties, reg­u­la­tors and oper­a­tors.

“As a result, ODIN was suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed on two FPSOs [float­ing pro­duc­tion stor­age and offload­ing units] in Brazil with­in a few months of it becom­ing avail­able. We are now plan­ning a fleet-wide approach with one of the largest oper­a­tors, and are nego­ti­at­ing con­tracts with sev­er­al drilling con­trac­tors and float­ing LNG [liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas] oper­a­tors.”

ODIN is a com­plete hull struc­tur­al integri­ty pack­age com­pris­ing engi­neer­ing, plan­ning and site imple­men­ta­tion, includ­ing a patent­ed means of inspect­ing crit­i­cal safe­ty valves, with­out divers while giv­ing bet­ter qual­i­ty and more accu­rate data on valve con­di­tion. EM&I’s life cycle and holis­tic capa­bil­i­ty of find­ing and fix­ing anom­alies at an ear­ly stage helps oper­a­tors run their plant effi­cient­ly and safe­ly.

“EM&I’s diver­less approach has changed the way this type of inspec­tion will be car­ried out in the future,” adds Alexan­der Con­stan­ti­nis, chief finan­cial offi­cer. “Our long-stand­ing rela­tion­ships with clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­eties and reg­u­la­tors are a result of work­ing togeth­er at all stages of the solu­tion devel­op­ment. This brings ben­e­fits to the indus­try by replac­ing the old peri­od­ic method of under­wa­ter inspec­tions with the ODIN con­tin­u­ous approach.”

EM&I’s chief oper­at­ing offi­cer Pat Law­less com­ments: “We have been in the busi­ness for many years so have a clear under­stand­ing of what our clients need and how we can help solve their chal­lenges. We con­tin­ue to con­ceive inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to improve asset integri­ty for high cap­i­tal val­ue projects. We work close­ly with clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­eties, reg­u­la­tors and indus­try bod­ies, and under­stand the val­ue and impor­tance of their input and accep­tance.

“Our work with R&D organ­i­sa­tions and knowl­edge of oth­er indus­tries expe­dites solu­tions. Our pol­i­cy of con­tin­u­ous improve­ment, explor­ing new mar­kets, and trans­fer­ring our knowl­edge and exper­tise into oth­er areas of the indus­try, keeps our peo­ple ener­gised and moti­vat­ed.”

EM&I is not stand­ing still, as chief exec­u­tive Mr Con­stan­ti­nis notes: “We have fur­ther devel­op­ments under­way and sig­nif­i­cant inter­est is being shown in anoth­er of our clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­ety accept­ed inno­va­tions, Hull­Guard™. This diver­less, retro-fit­table, impressed cur­rent cathod­ic pro­tec­tion (ICCP) sys­tem pro­tects the hull against cor­ro­sion for an extend­ed peri­od and avoids the risk of hav­ing to dry-dock to repair coat­ing or the hull struc­ture.

“We have been man­ag­ing gas plant integri­ty for many years and, with the require­ment for polit­i­cal­ly sta­ble sup­plies, it is a strong part of our busi­ness. Recent devel­op­ments in float­ing LNG pro­duc­tion and regasi­fi­ca­tion cor­re­spond well with our exper­tise, and we are work­ing with these oper­a­tors and clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­eties to adapt our exist­ing sys­tems. In addi­tion, we have devel­oped new physics, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a num­ber of uni­ver­si­ties, to make sure we stay ahead of the game.”

For many in the oil and gas indus­try, EM&I’s name is syn­ony­mous with deliv­er­ing integri­ty through inno­va­tion – and that fits very well with EM&I’s vision and cul­ture.

For more infor­ma­tion on the EM&I Group and its ser­vices go to www.emialliance.com