The main topic of the paper is the need for addressing supportability of subsea oil and gas installations, in particular complex installations in deep and ultra deep water. When bringing parts of the topside process systems down on the seabed and even downhole, some of the problems typical for topside systems will move along, hence implying a significant increase in the intervention demand. The importance of systematically addressing supportability also increases for remote fields and when the developments include the application of less field-proven equipment. Supportability issues include e.g. reliability, availability, maintainability, logistics, spare parts and intervention. The paper discusses how these issues as well as downtime elements can be used to support the design of installations and the installation’s support system in order to reduce or cater for uncertainty and to meet availability requirements. The paper includes examples from the European space industry on how supportability issues can be analyzed using simulations.

Keywords:
corrective maintenance, failure rate, requirement, subsea system, texas texas section, offshore symposium, naval architect, maintenance, maintenance strategy, houston
Subjects:
Offshore Facilities and Subsea Systems, Information Management and Systems
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2002. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers
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