Overview
An international operator recently acquired an FPSO to deploy to the North Sea in 2025. The FPSO is currently undergoing modifications and upgrades to accommodate the new field operating conditions.
Objective
To conduct a comprehensive integrity assessment of the FPSO to identify and prioritise items for replacement, repair, or fabric maintenance, whilst ensuring minimal offshore intervention from an integrity standpoint over the operational life of the field, up to COP 2035. The assessment was conducted in two steps:
- Step 1 – Complete internal condition assessment of all pressure systems.
- Step 2 – Complete an external condition assessment utilising GDi's Vision for all pressure systems, structures, hull and marine elements.
Scope of work
The focus of the integrity assessment was the examination of topsides pressure systems, which included pipework, vessels, heat exchangers, tanks and filters, as well as topsides structures. The methodology included the following steps:
- Internal inspection data extraction: gathered non-destructive testing (NDT) reports from the inspection company, including internal integrity assessment data.
- Data preparation: formatting, cleansing and correction of data sources provided by the client.
- EXACT software: identified 'good data' for trending and segregated extreme data – data that may pose an immediate integrity threat, or may not pose an immediate threat but required further investigation.
- External inspection data extraction: collected 100% external visual inspection reports from GDi Vision scans, covering external integrity evaluations for pipework, vessels and structures, with additional data preparation thereafter.
Results & benefits
- An internal condition assessment at system and line level, summarising all existing and new anomalies with primary findings and recommendations, acting as a primary feed to the longer-term RBI programme.
- An external condition assessment summarising primary findings and recommendations for all pressure systems, structures, hull and marine elements.
- A fully cleansed, corrected and interpreted legacy data set covering both internal and external conditions with mapped and predicted degradation, failure patterns and hot spots.
- Recommendations equating to a substantial reduction of approximately 40–50% of the anticipated maintenance and repair spend. Integration with GDi Vision provided a 'current condition' of the FPSO including new anomalies that hadn't previously been captured.
- A short-term remedial programme with defined repair, replace and fabric maintenance scope, with long-term recommendations and targeted fabric maintenance actions to preserve asset integrity over the field's operational life, up to COP 2035.
“We understand the paramount importance of maintaining asset integrity while minimising offshore interventions and the collaboration with Imrandd and GDi has proven to be a very clever and cost-effective way to gain the results we required. The use of GDi's Vision tool in combination with Imrandd's analytics technology provided a comprehensive data extraction, cleansing, and formatting process from which a robust and accurate foundation was built to base our decisions. Overall, the novel way in which the experienced engineers at Imrandd and GDi completed this project was a creative and cost-effective method to achieve the integrity assessment of our FPSO.”
