This leads to an under-use of assets, inefficient operations,
revenue loss, and may even compromise safety.
The main benefits of an asset management strategy,
therefore, are increased asset availability and performance,
maximised operations and maintenance effectiveness, and
enhanced health and safety.
Understanding asset management
No process industry can afford to perform maintenance on
equipment when it is not required, nor can they afford a
shutdown should a critical asset fail unexpectedly. But that
is exactly the risk associated with time-based maintenance
practices and the inevitable result of corrective maintenance
(fix on failure). In fact, one survey shows that as much as 80% of
maintenance activities result in no activity. Knowing the status
of all critical assets tells you what to maintain and, equally
important, what not to maintain.
Predictive maintenance (maintenance when condition is
detected) practices, in contrast, replace time-based guessing. This
enables maintenance to be more accurate and operations to be
more efficient. In fact, the US Department of Energy suggests that
predictive maintenance is up to 40% more cost efficient than
unplanned maintenance and up to 12% more cost efficient than
planned maintenance.
Meanwhile, a study by Det Norske Veritas (DNV) looking
at the operational expenditure of 10 North Sea offshore oil
and gas facilities, estimates their operational expenses to be
US$ 167 million/yr. Of this total, 40%, or US$ 67 million, is spent
on EICT maintenance. From this US$ 67 million, 36% is spent on
maintenance, of which 19% accounts for unplanned maintenance
and 17% for planned maintenance.
If you consider the US Department of Energy’s findings, this
means that there is a potential saving of US$ 6.5 million/yr.
So clearly maintenance is the largest controllable cost and
knowing the status of critical assets gives a good indication of
what does and what does not need maintaining. This is the key
for reducing maintenance costs.
To pull this kind of saving off you need accurate data
about how assets are performing at all times in every operating
condition, solid communications and great automatic decision
support. Relevant information has to be available at the right
time, in the right form and to the right people.
Figure 2 shows the correlation between the maintenance cost
and the plants’ operational availability. Substantial cost savings
and productivity gains can be achieved by adopting an asset
management strategy based on maintenance practice that is
predictive and proactive – in other words, condition-based.
Condition-based monitoring
Today, the oil and gas industry is littered with highly accurate
sensors and monitoring systems that continually watch and
record changes in critical plant assets. Data can be collected
remotely with modern control systems, further saving
operational resources. This is where the possibilities for smart,
predictive maintenance practices really start to kick in.
Condition-based monitoring makes it possible to
predict the condition of plant equipment based on a
long-term logging of data and the deeper analysis of it.
By integrating real-time condition monitoring into the
plant’s process control system, decision support can be
built-in that helps operators and maintenance staff to
be smarter about how and when they plan service on a
critical or even non-critical asset.
Early detection into potential problems gives
maintenance teams time to initiate an action that
would potentially save the day. But aside from crisis
prevention, when you apply condition monitoring
into one integrated control system it is easier to share
information between daily operations and maintenance.
By using the same system, both have access to the same
data. For some manufacturers this kind of collaboration
between the partners is nothing short of revolutionary
Figure 3.
Operational expenditures (OPEX) for the oil ang gas industry.
Figure 2.
A correlation between the maintenance cost and
the plants’ operational availability is shown. Substantial
cost savings and productivity gains can be achieved
by adopting an asset management strategy based on
maintenance practice that is predictive and proactive – in
other words, condition-based.
20
World Pipelines
/
SEPTEMBER 2014
