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Numéro : 2494 - Year : 2007

FPSO maintenance

Nolwenn LORANS, Bureau Veritas – DCM – Paris La Défense (France)

Since an FPSO combines the activities of both an offshore platform (with oil production and processing) and an oil tanker (with storage in the hull), it also combines the constraints due to these functions. This makes FPSO maintenance complex to organise and very expensive, but of highest importance as a single failure could lead to catastrophic consequences. The wide geographical disparity among the unit’s stakeholders makes its management even more complex.

This paper lists the specific needs and constraints of an FPSO’s maintenance before describing how the Asset Integrity Management System developed by Bureau Veritas meets those needs with a combination of Tools and Services.

First a secured database shared through the Internet enables easy access and exchange of asset informations between the interested parties.

Using RBI analyses and yearly reassessment of the unit’s condition through Finite Element analyses, AIMS provides cost-optimised inspection plans.

Finally, in case of damage which may result in a threat of pollution to the environment or in the unit’s loss, AIMS ensures that within hours stability and strength analyses are carried on to estimate the impact of the damage and of the corrective measures, thus helping the operator to select the best solution to save the unit.