Availability assessment of oil and gas processing plants operating under dynamic Arctic weather conditions

We consider the assessment of the availability of oil and gas processing facilities operating under Arctic conditions. The novelty of the work lies in modelling the time-dependent effects of environmental conditions on the components failure and repair rates. This is done by introducing weather-dependent multiplicative factors, which can be estimated by expert judgements given the scarce data available from Arctic offshore operations. System availability is assessed considering the equivalent age of the components to account for the impacts of harsh operating conditions on component life history and maintenance duration. The application of the model by direct Monte Carlo simulation is illustrated on an oil processing train operating in Arctic offshore. A scheduled preventive maintenance task is considered to cope with the potential reductions in system availability under harsh operating conditions.