Improving the Reliability of Subsea Valves

Abstract Subsea valves are critical component used for the control of fluid flow in sub-sea Oil & Gas (O&G) production equipment. Subsea Valves are susceptible to early-life failure and, are increasingly utilised in production equipment due to the current deep water exploration of O&G. The reliability of valves is indispensable to the availability of sub-sea production equipment. Failure of subsea valves can have significant financial, environmental, health and safety consequences. Failure Mode and Effect Criticality Analysis (FMECA) is a technique that permits evaluation of assets functions to predict critical failure modes and the resultant consequences in order to determine appropriate maintenance tasks for the assets. In this paper, the technique of FMECA is used to assess the failure characteristics of sub-sea valves. Common and dominant failure modes of the valves are identified. The failure consequences are calculated in financial terms by taking into account production losses, intervention cost, repair and environmental cleaning costs. Failure Elimination and Prevention Strategy (FEPS) is designed to prevent early-life failures and improve the overall reliability of subsea valves.