Not normally manned compression platforms for the North Sea

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:372436

Kumaran, K S

Gas turbine driven gas compressors have been widely used on manned offshore facilities. Similarly unmanned gas turbine driven compressor stations have been in operation onshore with major gas transmission companies in Europe, North America and elsewhere. This paper summarizes a recent joint industry study to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of Not Normally Manned (NNM) Offshore Compression Facilities in terms of reliability, availability and maintainability. Classification of not normally manned (or unmanned) offshore facilities in the UK North Sea is in accordance with HSE Operations Notice 8. ON8 specifies criteria for offshore visits, visit hours and number of personnel on board for the operation of NNM platforms. This paper describes a typical Southern North Sea gas platform being considered for NNM compressor application. The conclusions from the study was that NNM compression is technically feasible with the facilities being able to provide an availability in excess of 98%. Life cycle costs were of the order of 70% of manned facilities thus significantly improving field development economics.

• OSTI ID: 372436
• Report Number(s): CONF-9410272--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
03 NATURAL GAS
COMPRESSORS
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
NORTH SEA
OFFSHORE PLATFORMS
OPERATION
REMOTE CONTROL
REMOTE HANDLING EQUIPMENT