The ageing of oil and gas production platforms, pipelines, refineries, and petrochemical plants can pose a range of challenges and risks. Equipment and infrastructure that are past their design life are more likely to experience failures, which can result in unplanned downtime, loss of production, and potentially hazardous situations leading to accidents.
In the context of renewable energy developments, asset life extension can play a significant role in the transition to a more sustainable energy mix. For example, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar require significant upfront investment in infrastructure and equipment, and extending the life of existing assets can help to reduce the need for additional capital expenditures.
The challenge: increased likelihood of equipment failure
As equipment reaches the end of its useful life, it becomes more prone to corrosion, fatigue, and other forms of deterioration that can lead to mechanical failures. These failures can result in safety hazards, unplanned downtime, and environmental incidents such as oil spills.
The impact: competitiveness and safety performance
As facilities become outdated, they may not be able to compete with more modern facilities in terms of cost, efficiency, and environmental performance. Plant ageing constitutes a threat to health and safety performance of hazardous installations. Reports show that approximately 60% of major hazard loss of containment incidents are related to technical integrity and, of those, 50% have ageing as a contributory factor.
The answer: implement effective strategies
To address these challenges, OGC companies need to develop and implement effective strategies for managing ageing facilities. This may involve regular inspections and maintenance, upgrades and retrofits, and in some cases, decommissioning and replacement of obsolete infrastructure.
Smart solutions for each life cycle stage
As a safety solutions expert and provider with experience of over a decade, we support the industry by offering smart safety solutions for and in each life-cycle stage.
- To reduce effort, improve efficiency and minimize downtime during plant stops and maintenance we can provide the Power Wrench portable actuator.
- For operating valves with high torque or number of rotations we offer a valve opening alternative to expensive actuators; EasiDrive.
- For your interlock install base, we offer health checks and training, to ensure operational integrity of your risk level 1 equipment.