Operations and maintenance of oil and gas platforms under Arctic conditions

Abstract

In the Master thesis presented here, operations and maintenance challenges for offshore oil & gas (O&G) industry in Arctic regions shall be discussed. As oil prices remain on a high level Arctic oil and gas becomes more interesting. The higher price level allows for development of fields in this challenging remote environment. Understanding the environmental conditions is the key for successful projects. As there is still a lack of experience with equipment in these regions, maintenance of offshore oil and gas platforms will face many challenges. The cold and harsh climate, the remoteness, the poorly developed infrastructure and many other factors require new designs with optimal performance for these conditions. In the first part of this thesis, a general overview of the Arctic development shall be given. This part is followed by a discussion about challenges that developments will face in the Arctic will be discussed. Here especially the cold weather influence, remoteness and other factors are discussed in depth. In the third main part, maintenance of equipment shall be discussed under an Arctic perspective. Emphasis will be put on the selection of an appropriate maintenance strategy, the design for human factors/ ergonomics and the design for performance and availability. In the last part, the Goliat offshore platform will be presented as an industry example. Some of the winterization measures will be discussed.