Offshore oil and gas operators, contractors, and suppliers are increasingly looking at ways to become carbon neutral or carbon negative. Athens Group Services is engaged in this effort with initiatives to reduce our own carbon footprint and by offering services that help our clients achieve their green projects goals.
Carbon reduction goals can be achieved in various ways. Operators of existing marine vessels and drilling rigs can reduce greenhouse emissions by switching from carbon heavy fuels to carbon-light fuels such as hydrogen or natural gas, or through zero-carbon fuels such as renewable sourced electrics. Existing marine vessels and structures can be refit and repurposed to reverse greenhouse gas impacts through carbon recapture and storage or by harnessing wind, solar, and tidal. Even plug and abandon projects can be viewed as green projects as they are taking formerly carbon intensive production offline. Many of these projects can provide not only environmental benefits, but also cost benefits by reducing operating costs and by fulfilling Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) program requirements for green bonds.
Regardless of the type or scale of your project, it is highly likely that a complex, integrated mechanical, electrical, marine, or control system will be impacted. Athens Group Services’ decades of experience in verification and performance assurance across multiple industry sectors allow us to evaluate new or retrofit systems early enough in the lifecycle to prevent costly problems. The involvement of an experienced integration and verification services provider, such as Athens Group Services, is critical to your success.
The quality and coverage of the verification and performance assurance lifecycle — simulation and integration testing (HIL), factory acceptance, system installation, integration and commissioning — will impact the eventual operational success of the new or retrofit system. The highly automated nature of these systems also makes effective alarm management and configuration management, including cybersecurity, critical elements of the performance assurance lifecycle.
In our decades of experience, we have saved our customers hundreds of millions of dollars in avoidable problems through the effective application of verification and performance best practices.
In one real-world example, a requirements miscommunication between the structural designers and the software controls designers of a production platform resulted in a structural design error that would have made it impossible for the system to meet profitable performance requirements. Comprehensive simulation test plans provided by Athens Group Services allowed the error to be detected and corrected before production, saving millions of dollars in delays and later fixes.
In another real-world example related to alarm management, the failure of a critical system safety component was initially attributed to a bad sensor. The sensor and the component were then replaced, which led to another failure in the same manner as the first. As it turned out, the problem had correctly triggered an alarm, but the alarm was buried so deeply on the alarm screen that the remote operator missed it. Due to inadequate testing, no one was aware that the alarm was being mishandled. The takeaway from this experience was that implementation of a comprehensive alarm management plan would have prevented this situation.
Athens Group Services verification and performance assurance services result from vast experience inspecting, verifying, and testing a broad cross-section of complex integrated systems in the offshore sector. Our performance assurance and project management methods are rooted in the fundamental principles of integrated systems engineering, inspection, and test, and are designed to reduce the uncertainty and risk around project costs and deliverables. Our integrated systems engineering approach has provided our customers the confidence their assets will perform safely, efficiently and effectively. Contact us to discover how our methods can help ensure your green projects are a success.
To see the latest Athens Group Services developments, please follow us on Linkedin and Twitter.
Inspection Cost Control Through Effective Project Management