Equipment engineering technical Integrity Assurance – a game changer for the industry?

BUSINESS BRIEFS
EQUIPMENT ENGINEERING
Technical Integrity Assurance – a game
changer for the industry?
Historically, the oil and gas industry – and particularly the drilling sector – has been less tightly regulated and legislated than other industries liable to have serious incidents, such as the nuclear and aviation industries.
Mike Buckingham
RDS
Historically, the oil and gas industry – and particularly the drilling sector – has been less tightly regulated and legislated than other industries liable to have serious incidents, such as the nuclear and aviation industries.
Recent events in the Gulf of Mexico have focused minds firmly on the assurance of technical integrity for drilling facilities. Most of RDS’ clients have adopted a proactive approach and have already undertaken substantial measures to review and improve their current practices. However, the final shape of the rules that will govern offshore drilling is yet to emerge.
So, what are the core elements that are likely to be the subject of technical integrity assurance for owners, operators and design contractors of drilling facilities?
Drilling Facilities Technical Integrity Assurance (TIA) is not just about the physical condition of hardware. It must also take into account the ability of systems to operate correctly under abnormal or emergency scenarios, or a combination of both; as well as the competence of personnel to react to atypical

conditions to prevent the situation escalating into an unpredictable or uncontrollable event.
For any newbuild drilling rig, it would be reasonable to expect delivery of a TIA
program from the outset of the project. This should be designed to cover the full asset life cycle; starting at the concept phase and continuing through design,
build, commissioning, drilling operations, and maintenance. In the case of an existing rig, a minimum set of industry best practices need to be agreed and applied to provide the highest level of assurance concerning the condition of facilities and the execution of drilling operations. For RDS, these TIA industry best practices will encompass three core elements: systems, people and processes. No one element can stand alone without support from the other two.
Drilling and rig training simulators may be developed to recreate more realistic well control scenarios.
The “systems” element of drilling facilities takes in equipment, emergency and safety systems, commissioning, the “design to build” interface, and inspection and testing. It is vital that major equipment items are specified, built, certified,
and tested in line with appropriate regulations, standards, and codes. Instead of reviewing individual equipment, an approach should be implemented whereby a combination of inter-related equipment and processes are analyzed as a complete system.
Other critical issues are the communication interfaces between the various packages and the assurance that the system works as intended without the risk of

unplanned events; and assurance of reliable and predictable operations under various operating and emergency scenarios with specific reference to drilling control and automation systems. Often, abnormal operating events are not fully assessed during the design phase; however, a targeted review of emergency and safety systems, including experienced drilling operations personnel, can help eliminate unexpected events during any emergency situation.
A detailed review and audit of the robustness of commissioning procedures and test records will minimize the risk of unrevealed faults coming to light post sail- away. Schedule constraints can lead to rigs leaving the construction yard incomplete and not fully tested. When the rig is on station, these areas are much harder to address and some may never actually be completed.
Items are frequently modified at the construction site without a full understanding of the consequences to the design: rarely are the modifications subject to the same scrutiny as the original design during the design phase. Also,
many planned maintenance routines, inspection and test frequencies will be set at start-up when there is only limited availability of operating functional data. A
review based on the latest knowledge, technology, and actual equipment historical performance will therefore reduce the risk of safety equipment not operating when required. The appropriate definition of acceptance criteria,
confirmation of actual maintenance and testing, and the accessibility of existing records for all equipment on the installation, should also be part of any TIA
program.