Challenges of SAS (Safety Automation System) execution

Abstract

Extension of the production facilities life, focus on increased oil recovered, development of satellite reservoirs tied to the main facilities and innovation and advancement in the SAS technologies have led to an increased demands on the modifications and updating existing SAS and replacement of obsolete SAS technologies used on the production facilities. The SAS has a significant role in the petroleum processes because the failures in SAS can pose serious hazards for people and the environment. The SAS helps to detect conditions that signal potentially hazardous disturbances, and assist the operators of the system in the control and elimination of those disturbances. Use of SAS in the petroleum industry provides better protection and control solutions, real time performance required to meet reliability demands, industrial productivity and energy efficiency. At the same time SAS system has to be regularly updated and modified to take into account various factors described earlier which might impact on the safety of process. The challenges of SAS project implementation are investigated in the current master thesis. The main objective of this master thesis is to evaluate current SAS installations in the Norwegian Continental Shelf and its compliance with an industrial standards and regulations. Furthermore the thesis reviews development history of current SAS installations in NCS, evaluates possible future industrial demands and its impact on the future SAS technology, compares three SAS vendors which have current installation on the NCS and provides technical characteristics cross analysis of these systems. In the last part, the numbers of proposals have been made for future SAS developments and innovations under industrial demands. Recommendations have been proposed for resolving of gaps and challenges of current SAS installations in NCS.