Reducing Production Deferrals from Rotating Equipment Using a Standardised Approach across Multiple Assets

Abstract

In 2005, BP realised that the upstream operating business, with many assets, needed a set of standardised tools and processes for managing rotating equipment deferrals. As part of the Field of the Future programme, the Equipment Run Time Tracker (ERTT) was developed to automate the gathering of availability and reliability information which are the key performance indicators for rotating equipment. Where poor reliability is identified, other tools and methods including condition monitoring are used to understand the root cause of poor performance and fix the problem.This technology is applied across the segment to all types of surface facilities wherever rotating equipment is in use. This includes onshore, offshore, oil or gas producers and every geographical location. The solution is standardised, as is the deployment process to cover the whole range of upstream operations. This paper describes how automated reliability monitoring has been applied at scale across multiple assets as the first step in the management of production deferrals. It describes the BP Field of theFuture programme's experience of the development and delivery of Equipment Run Time Tracker, which has become the standard platform for monitoring reliability in a growing footprint of over 30 assets. Poor performers have been identified using the tool, along with instances of poor operation and control regimes. There are also examples where equipment has been moved to a condition based maintenance regime. Equipment Runtime Time Tracker is a significant development for the digital oilfield because it is a standardised solution for automatically capturing availability and reliability information across multiple assets at scale. As production deferrals are a major source of lost business value in oilfield operations and rotating equipment is a key source of these deferrals in the upstream oil business, addressing this problem at scale in a cost effective way is a strong driver of business value.