Health & Safety
High-profile accidents refocus inspection and maintenance regimes
A number of high profile explosions in recent times have put renewed emphasis on the inspection and maintenance technologies and regimes used by the oil and gas industry. Eugene McCarthy investigates.
Una serie de explosiones con gran repercusión en los últimos tiempos han puesto nuevo énfasis en las tecnologías y los sistemas de inspección y mantenimiento utilizados en la industria del gas y el petróleo, investiga Eugene McCarthy.
Durch eine Reihe kürzlich erfolgter Explosionen, die viel Beachtung in der Öffentlichkeit fanden, erhielten Inspektions- und Wartungstechnologien und -systeme in der Öl- und Gasindustrie neue Bedeutung. Eugene McCarthy untersucht dies.
Fig. 1. GL Noble Denton is one of a small number of inspection specialists to assess the safety, quality and performance of equipment acquired for BP’s high-profile capital and operating expenditure projects.
the subsea monitoring of critical assets to ensure safe, reliable production. Tis requires an intelligent network of sensors, leak detection systems and other devices designed, tested and installed in key areas on the ocean floor. Tis information also must be integrated into a consistent software platform that is supported by analytical models to interpret and drive subsea service activities. Demonstrating the company’s sensor
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expertise and ongoing commitment to innovation, GE’s measurement and control business has announced two innovative condition monitoring and sensing solutions for the subsea sector: the acoustic leak detection (ALD) system and the subsea multi-domain condition monitoring (SMCM) system. Te ALD system uses passive, acoustic
hydrophone technology to detect and locate subsea oil and gas leaks by discriminating the noise of a leak from other sources of sound. Developed from
oday’s oil and gas engineers and technicians are faced with new challenges in the marinisation of increasingly complex machinery and in
naval military technology, the sensing system enables extremely sensitive and accurate measurement of subsea acoustics and can be used to detect ‘silent’ leaks that occur when there is low flow rate or low differential pressure. GE says its solution is the leading ISO-qualified technology for permanent (25 years) deployment available today that can detect both crude oil and gas with sufficient sensitivity while providing wide area coverage of up to 500 metres. For its part, the company’s SMCM system combines electric emission monitoring and acoustic hydrophones specially designed for monitoring the operating condition of subsea machinery and processes - from pumps and valves to supporting infrastructure. Typically combined with ALD to detect subsea leakage, the system performs multi- domain analysis supported by proven pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms to identify and display subsea structure, machine and pipeline activities and anomalies. “Oil and gas customers trust GE to
provide condition-based monitoring services for their offshore topside platforms. As subsea exploration and production becomes increasingly important globally, many customers are looking to expand these topside capabilities to the seabed. By combining subsea sensors and acoustic condition monitoring with existing GE technology, customers can expand their view into operations and make intelligent, critical decisions about their operations,” said Jens Abrahamsen, Naxys business leader for GE measurement and control, a GE oil and gas division.
Preferred suppliers Independent technical advisor GL Noble Denton has signed a new agreement with BP in a move that will see it become a preferred supplier of vendor inspection services across BP’s global portfolio of upstream assets.
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