Class society Lloyd's Register is working with leading owners and operators from the oil & gas sector to improve current methods of monitoring the performance of blowout preventers.
Two risk management specialists within the Lloyd's Register Group, ModuSpec and Scandpower, have combined resources with industry to develop a ‘BOP Monitor' that is expected to significantly improve the current processes that assess risk for one of the industry's most safety-critical pieces of equipment during operations.
The monitor will be a new application for Scandpower's proprietary software, RiskSpectrum, now widely used in nuclear power plants globally.
‘The BOP is a critical component in any hydrocarbon drilling operation and is often the final line of defence for protecting life and the environment, so there is high demand for a transparent and well-structured risk assessment approach that helps owners and operators to monitor the BOP's performance,' says ModuSpec chief executive officer Duco de Haan. ‘Because ModuSpec has been a global leader in helping to ensure the reliability of drilling assets for more than 25 years, we recognise the importance of industry participation in developing a product of this caliber.'
According to de Haan, present BOP risk assessments lack a consistent structure. As a result, decisions on whether or not to pull them for inspection and maintenance can be subjective and difficult to understand, particularly for senior management and regulatory bodies. ‘The BOP Monitor will be unique in that the risk assessments used to populate the data for the model will be performed in advance by a team of BOP operational experts with the required documentation and drawings at their disposal. As the risk assessments will be completed in a controlled setting, against a proven methodology from Scandpower, the quality of the risk assessments are certain to exceed those taken in an ad-hoc manner.
Scandpower chief executive Bjorn Inge Bakken adds: ‘We are breaking new ground in assessing risk by developing the BOP Monitor. What will make this risk model so valuable is the quality of the data used to carry out the assessments in combination with the immediacy in which the results are received. The ability to define the operational risk level of a BOP in "real-time", including the identification of faulty components, will be of great benefit to the industry and society as a whole.'
With risk assessments being completed in advance and embedded in the BOP Monitor, the expectation is that rig owners, operators and regulators will receive advice on the BOP within hours, helping them to make informed decisions on whether or not to continue operations. Two panels made up of internal and external experts in the field are being established to review product development and industry feedback to ensure the model is continuously improved.
The monitor is currently being designed to model BOPs from two manufacturers, with additional designs to follow, including conventional and multiplex. The panelists will be presented with failure mode and effects criticality analyses, reliability data and the results of fault-tree analyses. OE
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