Regional Reliability Database for Subsea Equipment

An industry collaboration to generate a reliability dataset for subsea equipment operating in Australian waters.

Subsea equipment operating in tropical, warm North Western Australian waters are exposed to harsh environments where marine fouling flourishes, resulting in failed or faulty equipment.

Acknowledging the unique operating challenges of the region, Wood and local operators established the Subsea Equipment Australia Reliability Joint Industry Project (SEAR JIP) in 2014 with a remit to drive improvements in subsea equipment design and reliability through knowledge sharing and collaboration.

A key component of the JIP is a cloud-based reliability database developed to capture and share subsea equipment and failure data and to establish a region-specific reliability dataset to reflect subsea operations in the region.

 ISO 14224 (Petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries – Collection and exchange of reliability and maintenance data for equipment) forms the basis of the database, providing a standardized methodology for data collection and an industry recognised framework against which equipment performance can be assessed. All data shared is anonomized to maintain data confidentiality.

Presently, the database is focused on regional performance of Subsea Control Modules (SCMs), Electrical Flying Leads (EFLs) and Umbilicals based on Operators experience of premature failures and faults. The database currently contains equipment and failure data for 266 SCMs, 657 EFLs and 93 Umbilical collected across ~19 fields from 5 participating operators extending back to 2008.

Initial insights from the regional dataset have validated local Operator collective experience with early equipment failure. Reliability data has also been shared with OEMs (SCMs only) to benchmark performance of OEM equipment against the SEAR JIP reliability dataset and to provide a foundation for industry collaboration to drive improvements in the region.

The Operators: