Dynamic barrier management: A case of sand erosion integrit

Review of major accidents in various industrial sectors has demonstrated that inadequate understanding of the status of safety barriers is a common contributing factor. In the offshore oil and gas industry understanding and monitoring of barrier status may be improved through Integrated Opera¬tions: new methods and tools allowing for collection and processing of real-time data, visualization of related information and decision making in interdisciplinary teams. Within the Center for Integrated Operations in the Petroleum Industry, a novel dynamic approach was defined in order to provide key barrier information, present it in an intuitive visual form and provide practical guidance to operators if corrective actions are recommended. This project has focused on a case of sand erosion integrity and has been conducted in three phases: i) scenario identification; ii) modelling; and iii) refinement. The final result has been twofold: a methodology to gather and elaborate the information required for dynamic barrier management and a prototype decision support tool. The implementation of this approach in the offshore oil and gas industry will support improved decision making and enable enhanced safety through continuous awareness and management of the barriers that reduce the risks of major accidents.