SEAR JIP: The Value of Sharing of Lessons Learned on Subsea Integrity and Reliability

Abstract

Abstract The Subsea Equipment Australian Reliability (SEAR) Joint Industry Project (JIP); is a partnership led by Wood and supported by a group of Operators namely Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Inpex, PTTEP Australasia, Shell and Woodside. Now delivering Phase IV, the project is focused on collaboration and knowledge sharing in order to improve subsea equipment design, improve reliability, and reduce interventions; with the ultimate goal of reducing the cost to operate subsea equipment in Australia. The SEAR JIP was kicked off in 2014, when local Operators identified that subsea equipment was failing prematurely and estimated the cost impact of poor equipment performance. The SEAR project has since, through sharing of failure and design data, developed a reliability database to collect asset and failure information from SEAR members with Australian offshore operations. The SEAR database provides a low cost / high value method of capturing, sharing all subsea failures and lessons learnt for this region and allows comparison of Australian subsea equipment performance with other industry data sources. Over the years, the JIP has focused on different but common industry challenges, such as the impact of marine fouling affecting operability during interventions and umbilical performance. The ability to better understand subsea equipment failures and intervention requirements has the potential to offer Operators significant cost savings, by optimising equipment reliability / availability and reducing interventions. This paper will present an overview of the SEAR JIP including its scope, deliverables, key issues of common interest and what the JIP has achieved to date. The paper will conclude with a look ahead to the future vision for SEAR and the value of continued collaboration.