Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) systems are vessels used to extract, process, store and offload oil and gas products before they're transported to refineries or directly to the market. These units have become increasingly vital in the production and processing of hydrocarbons, however, FPSOs come with their share of safety concerns as a result of their extensive operations.

Planned maintenance (PM) is critical for equipment to function as per its design criteria. Not only will planned maintenance regimes reduce the likelihood of failure, but when it is applied correctly, at the right frequency, this maintenance can significantly reduce OPEX expenditure. 

Routing, sequencing and packaging can make maintenance execution much more efficient, improving plant and system availability, maintenance team productivity as well as safety. 

In October of this year, Add Energy's Asset Integrity Management division had an enriching experience, engaging with Maintenance and Reliability professionals at the SMRP Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida.

As we wrapped up our exhibitor booth, we couldn't help but notice three recurring statements that dominated conversations throughout the event. 

1. “We want to employ AI and Machine Learning into our operations”

A resounding theme throughout the conference was the growing influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning in the Maintenance and Reliability sector. The industry is progressively embracing these technologies to optimize predictive maintenance, reduce downtime, and enhance asset performance.

Poor data quality and lack of completeness can have significant impacts on OPEX costs, safety and asset uptime. In relation to the financial  impacts, IBM estimates that  “bad data” costs the US economy a staggering $3.1 trillion per year. 

In almost every case of an incident on an operating asset which results in equipment downtime, production loss, personnel injuries/fatalities or environmental impacts, the cause can be linked back to an issue within the data available.

Particularly, for production assets, poor Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) data can incur:

The biggest enemy of maintenance and reliability is unplanned downtime. While planned downtime is inevitable when managing a plant, unplanned downtime is often one of the largest challenges and expenses.

When production has to cease unexpectedly because of a broken part or safety issue, time needs to be urgently spent to identify the problem, fix it, and ensure there are no ancillary issues before restarting. This is highly disruptive and costly, and maintenance teams are therefore always striving to avoid unexpected failures or breakdowns. 

Effective maintenance planning and scheduling is vitally important for every asset, because not only does it enable efficient work execution, it has a direct impact on production and safety targets as well as OPEX. Proactively planning and scheduling your maintenance can often seem impossible amid unexpected priority changes and urgent requests - or what many describe as “firefighting”.

An operating plant is subject to significant changes throughout its lifecycle, ranging from new owners to plant upgrades, design changes and expansions. When these changes are not managed correctly this can incur exposure to safety issues, downtime and unnecessary costs.