Achieving Substantial Cost Savings through a Holistic Asset Replacement Strategy

Abstract A holistic asset replacement strategy is developed to produce a master asset replacement plan for a significant number of ageing offshore structures and subsea pipelines in order to meet the business objectives in terms of production from ADMA-OPCO offshore fields over the next 30 years and beyond. The developed strategy follows an integrated approach that covers the entire cycle starting from evaluation and selection, phasing of replacement campaigns and integration with planned development projects. A holistic set of criteria are established for evaluation and selection of asset replacement covering integrity condition (License to Operate), code compliance, technology obsolescence, component replacement, capacity limitation and network optimization. The developed process for asset replacement master planning is a dynamic and continuous process. The replacement plans are constantly reviewed and updated based on new information and changes in various factors such as business plan, operational requirements, new inspection, technology development etc. Substantial cost savings can be achieved through developing an integrated asset replacement strategy. The main areas for cost savings include optimization of asset life extension, optimization of CAPEX expenditure associated with asset replacement and optimization of production outage due to asset replacement. The key factors for successful implementation of such a strategy are evaluation of the integrity status of the assets based on an integrated assessment of technical, economic and HSE aspects and optimizing the phasing and integration of the asset replacement campaigns. This paper presents an integrated asset replacement strategy to achieve substantial cost savings in replacement of ageing offshore structures and subsea pipelines. The key elements and process for developing the asset replacement master plan are presented through a case study. The application of the presented strategy can be extended to other types of oil and gas production assets.