Speaking at the recent IEEE Conference on ‘Human Factors and Power Plants’ in Monterey, California, Hydro’s Holst Nystad described how integrated operations on the Norwegian North Sea Brage field have extended the field’s life ‘for ten years.’ The ‘Brage 2010+’project takes a holistic approach to the development of ‘best practice work processes’ spanning the offshore and onshore environments. These include production and process optimization, operations and maintenance and logistics. These are enabled by ‘extensive application’ of information and communication technologies (ICT) including a broadband secure network, upgraded IT infrastructure, intelligent real time information workspaces and an onshore visionarium.
AspenTech IP.21
Workflow retooling has moved from linear to a hub based approach cutting cycle times ‘from weeks to hours.’ Multiple point to point application/data links have been replaced by a data hub with Aspentech’s InfoPlus.21 real time data historian at its core.
Critical Performance Analysis
Current efforts target fiscal metering, heavy rotating machinery through ‘deep’ integrated operations, change management, critical performance analysis and the ‘Man, Technology and Organization’ (MTO) approach developed at NTNU. These have successfully addressed the challenge of Brage’s increasing ops and maintenance costs—forecast to rise exponentially toward end of field life. In a 2006 McKinsey study, of 44 North Sea fields, Brage was the best in terms of costs.
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