Oceaneering Develops Comprehensive Maintenance Strategy to Support FSRU Retrofit

An Aberdeen-based Integrity Management and Digital Solutions (IMDS) team supported maintenance requirements and asset review for vessel offshore West Africa.

1 Project Overview

In late 2020, Oceaneering’s IMDS group completed a four-month project to support a large vessel modification project off the coast of West Africa.

The client was retrofitting a liquid natural gas carrier (LNGC) to create a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU). The FSRU uses regasified LNG to generate electricity that is delivered to an onshore connection and transmission facility.

2 Challenge

The client was required to have an established maintenance strategy in place in order to ensure the vessel met the required standards and regulations and to allow the safe start-up of the modified asset.

3 The Oceaneering Solution

The project focused on two primary deliverables: a maintainable equipment list and a maintenance strategy.

An Aberdeen-based team of integrity management professionals completed a thorough review of assets and generated a database for the client. This information fed into the subsequent maintenance strategy, enabling the client to optimize maintenance and inspection while ensuring compliance.

The Oceaneering team also provided the maintenance strategy. All facility owners and operators are required to ensure their assets are managed effectively to confirm their technical integrity while maximizing their availability and reliability throughout the design life.

To meet this requirement, appropriate and effective maintenance activities must be defined and applied which are economic, in terms of value, when compared to the potential safety, environmental, and business reputational impacts that may occur where no action is taken. The overall objective is to ensure that a high level of safety is maintained.

Oceaneering developed a maintenance strategy that could be applied across all the specified equipment taking into account the requirements of all relevant legislation, national and international standards, and lessons learned through best engineering practice and operational experience. The FSRU’s maintenance strategy covered the application of maintenance for the vessel’s:

  • Cargo pumps and associated equipment, motors, instrumentation, etc.
  • Safety valves (PSVs)
  • Regasification plant
  • Electrical equipment (within hazardous areas)
  • Emergency shutdown (ESD) valves.

4 Execution Plan

A highly-experienced team in Aberdeen reviewed all technical documentation provided by the client.

This enabled them to determine and assess the onboard maintainable equipment and develop a comprehensive maintenance strategy.

5 Project Highlights

  • Since the completion of this scope of work in Africa, the client has contracted Oceaneering for a similar project in Asia, demonstrating their trust in our capability to meet project objectives.
  • The full review of all onboard equipment and subsequent maintenance support package was completed successfully, on time, and within budget.

6 Results

Establishing a strategic and data-based maintenance strategy had both short- and long-term implications for the client.

Not only were they able to execute retrofit work while remaining compliant, but the strategy will equip them with a schedule to maximize equipment uptime and asset life. They are less likely to be affected by maintenance-based interruptions to critical operation. Importantly, they are well positioned to increase their overall efficiency across operations by streamlining inspections and work orders to meet regulatory standards.

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Company page Since our founding in the early 1960s, Oceaneering has expanded and grown globally to service several industries such as the offshore energy industry, defense, entertainment, material handling, aerospace, science, and renewable energy industries. In 1964, Mike Hughes and Johnny Johnson formed a Gulf of Mexico diving company called World Wide Divers. The company grew in response to increasing demand for their services and in 1969 merged with two other diving companies to form Oceaneering International, Inc. To solve the toughest challenges, we do things differently, creatively, and smarter. As your trusted partner, our unmatched experience and truly innovative portfolio of technologies and solutions give us the flexibility to adapt and evolve, regardless of market conditions. Our mission is to solve the unsolvable. We thrive by creating industry-changing technically creative solutions for the most complex operational challenges under water, on land, and in space. Our five core values establish a common culture and demonstrate what is most important for us as a company. Since the beginning, the company has transformed from a small regional diving company into a global provider of engineered products and services. Today, we develop products and services for use throughout the lifecycle of an offshore oilfield, from drilling to decommissioning. We operate the world's premier fleet of work class ROVs. Additionally, we are a leader in offshore oilfield maintenance services, umbilicals, subsea hardware, and tooling. We also serve the aerospace, defense, and theme park industries. Underpinning everything we do, safety is not only the foundation of our core values, but it is vital to our unmatched performance record and company culture. The industries we serve are as diverse as they are complex. Whether we are engineering deepwater umbilicals or developing robotics for aerospace applications, the safety and health of our employees, vendors, and customers is an integral part of our day-to-day business. If we are working, then our responsibility is to be working safely. Since our inception in 1964, we have placed a high value on employee safety—from diving services and subsea inspection to vessel-based installation operations. We have and will continue to evolve not only our health, safety, and environmental (HSE) processes, but those of the industries in which we work. Although we have been fatality-free since 1999, our HSE journey goes beyond statistics. As our portfolio of services has grown, we have continued to prioritize and advance our approach to HSE.