Health, Safety and Environmental R&D

Don Smith

International Association of Oil and Gas Producers

R&D within a Global Industry

• Industry invests billions of dollar on R&D related activities covering the full spectrum of industry interests (eg ExxonMobil invested ~$700m in 2005)

• A range of mechanisms through which the industry funds R&D including:– Directly funded R&D– Grants– In-house R&D capabilities – Foundations– Involvement in government programmes

• Difficult to establish the nature and extent of R&D activity in the health, safety and environmental areas

Offshore Structures

• Various floating system behaviour JIPs (Deepstar)

• Moorings JIP• Decommissioning methodology JIP• SCI/TWI Brent Flare Tower Fatigue• Jack-Up Studies (related to SNAME and ISO)

• FPSO Research Forum

FPSO Research Forum

• To identify the common technical issues facing those involved in designing, fabricating and/or operating FPSOs, and to foster JIPs to tackle them for the common good of the industry.

• Current projects:– Numerical modeling of non-linear fluid loads by means of

Volume of Fluid Method – Analysis of out of plane bending fatigue in mooring chain – Shallow water wave kinematics related to near-shore terminals– Investigation in mooring failures – Simulation of side-by side offloading – Intelligent Structural Health of FPSO’s – Fatigue analysis of steel structures – Investigation of structural integrity by inspections

www.fpsoforum.com

Metocean

• Range of hindcasting JIPs:– North Sea (NUG/NEXT)– North West Approaches (NWAG)– Caspian Sea (CASMOS)

• Regional JIP– West African Gusts – West African Swell

• Wave Studies– 10-4 Waves– Shallow water waves

Co-ordinated throughOGP Metocean Committee

Involvement in EU Programmes

SIMORC(System of Industry Data for the Offshore

and Research Community)

• To create a central index and database of metocean data sets, collected by the oil & gas industry

• To facilitate harmonisation in quality and formats, storing and retrieving of these industry metocean datasets

• To create a searchable overview of hindcast studies

www.simorc.org

Virthualis

• Objective: to produce an affordable and accessible virtual reality technology to help reduce human factor related incidents in the oil and gas industry

• EU funded programme:– 4 year duration– Total funds Euro 15 million (9 from EU)– Over 40 partners

www.virthualis.org

Health Related R&D

• Malaria• Sexually transmitted disease control

Environment Related R&D

• Long term effects of cutting piles in the North Sea• Produced water discharge• ‘Zero harmful discharge’ related studies• Arctic Conditions:

– Chemical dispersion of oil in ice covered water– In-situ burning of oil in ice covered waters– Detection of spilled oil under ice

• Establishment of a lab (Qatar) to study environmental effects associated with LNG production

• Drill cuttings monitoring JIP (Brazil)

E&P Sound and Marine Life JIP

E&P Sound and Marine Life JIP

• Background – increasing focus on sound in the marine environment and its potential to cause harm to all forms of marine life

• JIP Objective - to address the E&P relevant knowledge gaps, with the overall aims of better risk assessments and improved mitigation measures

• JIP:– 3 to 5 year R&D programme– >$20m funds– 9 participants to date (more expected)

OGP Future Activities

• Fire and Blast Directory• Human Factors (Tools/Culture)• Geohazards Position Paper• Land Transportation Safety• Managing Major Accident Hazards

Summary

• On a global basis the industry spends a considerable sum on R&D related activities

• Many different approaches adopted to funding R&D

• Information on industry funded R&D (on a global basis) difficult to access– OGP currently exploring how this position can be

improved