A Step Change in Managing Technical Integrity in the Oil and Gas Industry - A Case Study

Abstract

Today's business environment is more competitive and technologically complex. From a business perspective, managing risk and ensuring predictable and sustainable operations are vital necessities. Technical integrity plays a key role and the owner needs to have control of all facilities in terms of technical safety and production regularity both in a day-to-day and a lifetime perspective. Measuring and managing technical integrity is a the synthesis of several work processes like production, maintenance and inspection, modifications, safety reviews and technical audits, competence building and knowledge. This complexity makes it challenging to manage technical integrity in a coherent and consistent manner towards common and aligned business goals. The paper outlines Statoil's risk based approach to an integrated, cross-disciplinary system for management of technical integrity of offshore and onshore production facilities. An initiative was launched in 2010 to develop and implement a new technical integrity management for measuring and follow-up of the technical condition of safety barriers, well-, production- and transportation systems, and load bearing structures. This initiative was named TIMP - Technical Integrity Management Programme. The TIMP concept consists of:A comprehensive and ambitious competence programmeA standardised work process to follow up and visualise technical integrityA methodology to assess the technical condition at equipment-, system and facility levelAn IT tool to visualise the technical integrity and assist daily work processes. Details of each element of TIMP are further outlined in the paper, and the challenges and learning from the development and implementation of TIMP on 40 assets are summarized. While TIMP supports the daily work processes for managing the technical integrity of all production systems and safety barriers, a technical verification is carried out for all safety barriers every 5 years at all Statoil operated assets, offshore and onshore. This verification program is named Teknisk Tilstand Sikkerhet - TTS (eng: Technical Condition Safety) and together TIMP and TTS form the core technical integrity management for all assets operated by Statoil.