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A major accident hazard (MAH) is the failure of one or more factors related to people, process and equipment. To achieve an effective asset integrity, the organization needs to have more focus on major accident hazards as these incidents are rare, but the consequence is large. Drilling operations are exposed to a number of hazards such as corrosion, fatigue, accidental damage, extreme weather conditions, geological, geotechnical, change in used technology etc. throughout their life cycle which may lead to a major accident. Drilling operation may also have additional complexities due to the involvement of many stakeholders, such as drilling contractor, drilling equipment supplier, operator etc. It therefore becomes more important for drilling to develop a structured asset integrity management program where the proper integration of different stakeholders is established with clear roles defined to reduce the probability of hazard realization from a major accident hazard (MAH). This brings the organization focus on managing the people, process and equipment/machinery-related weakness to avoid the MAH and ensures that the asset functions as per the design intent.

In this article, A 05-step process is suggested to develop an overall Asset Integrity Management program for a drilling organization to manage a Major Accident Hazard threat and its realization.

The operation of a drilling company is more complex as several stakeholders, such as operator (drilling, reservoir, geological, operations team), Drilling service companies (drilling fluids, cement, BOP manufacturer, well casing design, drilling bits etc.), classification societies and Drilling company/contractor (Rig design & maintenance, driller, rig crew etc.) are involved in achieving the common goal of drilling. Due to the very nature of a drilling operation, the organizations need more focus on major accident hazards as these incidents are rare, but the consequence is large. A major accident hazard is the failure of one or more factors related to people, process, and equipment. While drilling organisations manage control and critical drilling equipment well, based on proponent in-house standard and/or international standard such as API/ISO, the complexity and various stakeholder involvement often lacks the availability of a structured asset integrity program to manage the major accident hazard. An asset Integrity Management Program in any organization requires the integration and utilization of company/stakeholder’s internal process, procedure, standard & guidelines and tools e.g. forms, checklist etc. for proactive control & mitigation of a major accident hazard.

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In this paper, A simplified 05-step process is proposed for a drilling organization to develop an organization-specific Asset Integrity Management program.

Step 1- Development of Asset Integrity Management Framework

An organization should develop a unified corporate Asset Integrity Management framework based on asset management, inspection, maintenance & operation requirements. The framework should detail the integration of a drilling company/contractor internal process/procedure and other stakeholder process/procedure to achieve avoidance/mitigation of a major accident hazard.

The framework should define the people, process and equipment/system integrity requirements to avoid a potential major accident hazard by evaluating following basic aspects e.g.

• Do we understand what can go wrong?
• Do we know what systems are in place to prevent this from happening?
• Do we have assurance and verification functions that these systems will work?
• Do we have proactive visualization of integrity performance based on leading/lagging KPI?

Based on the evaluation of the above aspects, the framework should include a high level requirement of the following Integrity management element

Policy for Asset Integrity Management and utilization of any current/existing management system to ensure Asset Integrity
Structure & governance of asset integrity management to effectively manage the asset integrity related to activity and function

• Identification of barrier and its component e.g., key competency, safety critical element (equipment/component/system), critical process / procedure, interface requirements for drilling service and function.
• Development of Assurance-function based on existing operation, engineering, technical, maintenance requirements
• Verification requirements/activity based on regular review of current integrity status (Use existing forms/checklist, program to the maximum extent)
• Visualization of existing rig integrity status based on identified Safety critical element (SCE) integrity status and current status review
• Performance monitoring based on leading and lagging KPI related with asset integrity management.

Step 2- Develop Asset Integrity Management Structure

Drilling company/contractor should ensure that the existing management program provide the integrity management structure and function to specifically support the verification of safety critical equipment/element (SCE) assurance functions to avoid/mitigate MAH. This should include an asset Integrity Management team both at corporate/site level with details RASCI (responsible, accountable, support, consultative and information) chart to execute the Integrity management specific task leading to adequate focus on major accident hazard and related risk realization.

The company should create an Identify Asset Integrity Management/Engineering team, and assign responsibilities to address specific asset integrity-related activity/task such as:

• Development, execution and monitoring of asset integrity management specific internal procedure & guide
• Operational risk management guide, risk register development and utilization of risk register as a tool to manage the risk.
• Development & utilization of Well barrier schematic for different types of Well, and an area to support asset integrity
• Evaluation of MHA related safety critical task analysis (SCTA) and its effectiveness through assurance & verification process to minimize human error.
• SCE (people, process, equipment/system) identification and its management based on SCE performance standard development, execution & update. Below is a list of some required performance standard examples
• Well test and control
• Blow out preventer system
• Choke & Kill system
• Rig move & structure
• Main power system & supply
• Emergency power system & supply
• Fire and gas detection
• Third party equipment
• Emergency shutdown system
• Lifting Equipment
• Execute, verify & monitor SCE integrity assurance based on existing Inspection, Maintenance, testing (IMT) and operating procedures
• SCE (both hardware and software) Performance monitoring and continuous improvement

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Figure-1 Decision support flow diagram based on hazard

Step 3- Create effective risk management process to avoid Major Accident hazard

The organization should develop a decision support flow diagram with inbuilt action details for all the key causal risk of any major hazardous event (Refer Figure-1) to develop an effective risk management for asset integrity. This flow diagram will provide the necessary insight about the inclusion of required assurance and verification task related with process, people and equipment in the applicable performance standard of identified SCE.

To have a detailed insight about the availability of control, and mitigation barrier of an identified causal risk, an organization can use other safety study tools such as SWIFT (Structured what if technique), Bow-tie analysis etc. The generated information can be used to develop a risk register at rig level with existing control and mitigation details on all the operation, process, mechanical, and people-related causal risks. The developed risk register can be aligned with the overall ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) process of the organization and used as a tool for SCE integrity management with focus on control & mitigation effectiveness. A risk tracking system should be available to monitor the status of identified risk based on the listed control & mitigation barrier/SCE effectiveness. The risk management process should define a clear RASCI (Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consultative and Information) chart for the employee/management and devise a mechanism to review and update the identified risk on a regular basis.

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Step 4- Establish Asset Integrity Model Barrier and SCE management process

Drilling company/contractors should develop a barrier model for people, process and Well control/critical equipment (both well and rig related) in some form of barrier model to have visibility and clarity of any hazard/threat realization concept across the organization. It is worth mentioning that the representation of hardware equipment/SCE in the form of a rig barrier along with Well barrier schematic (for hardware & software) will provide the required visualization of a hazard/threat as an integrity model being followed by the subject organization operation.

Shown below (Figure-2) is a typical barrier concept based on the swiss cheese model which represents the hardware (equipment) flaws for hazard and threat realization being followed for Asset Integrity Management as an AIMS Model representation for a process plant. Drilling organizations can develop a similar AIMS model as applicable.

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Further, organizations should develop a clear process for SCE identification and its review/update process for the effective monitoring of a Major accident hazard. A Safety Critical Element (SCE) is defined as a system, Item of equipment, Person or Procedure that is specifically identified using HEMP (Hazard effect management process) and included in the facility Safety Case (highly recommended to develop for drilling organization) as an asset that:

• Failure of which could cause or contribute substantially to a Major Accident or Major Environmental Accident; and/or
• Purpose of which is to prevent or limit the effect of a Major Accident or Major Environmental Accident.

Once an SCE has been identified, the organization should align the identified SCE (hardware & software) with any operational risk as captured in the risk register and develop a barrier & related safety critical equipment/system performance standard based on key IMT (Inspection, Maintenance & Testing) and operational assurance activity, to avoid the risk realization.

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Figure-3 Transition of lagging to leading indicators in drilling operation

A performance standard defines the critical function, specific, verifiable, realistic and achievable performance requirements with which the SCE shall comply throughout the lifecycle of the installation. It can be expressed in qualitative or quantitative terms, but should produce a Pass or Fail result, which is used as the basis for managing the hazard.

A barrier/SCE management process should utilize a performance standard, its verification and reporting along with other activity based on a PDCA (Deming cycle) concept. This process should include all the required instruction and linking of existing process/procedure, along with the roles & responsibilities of the Asset Integrity assurance team, the OME team and the Asset integrity verifier. All the identified barrier/SCE should be verified against these performance standards to ensure its integrity.
A typical SCE management flow diagram (Figure-3) based on performance standard is depicted below for reference.

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Step-5 Identify leading and lagging asset integrity specific KPIs and develop Asset Integrity dashboard

The identification of leading and lagging indicators are key to managing the organization asset integrity performance factors proactively that are responsible for major accident hazard realization e.g. the lack of a risk management process, deficiency in internal procedure & guidelines, lack of barrier/safety critical element management and lack of compliance audit & verification.
On many occasions, clear boundaries in a leading and lagging indicator are fuzzy. A gas kick for example, is a leading indicator for a possible blow out, whereas it is a lagging indicator for well bore fluid that has already entered the well bore due to a barrier failure.

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Figure-4 Leading Indicator identification tree with example

A leading indicator is considered to be a predictive set of parameters/course of action which delivers early information on barrier performance. It must be measurable and recognizable and provide benchmark operation & organization performance for asset integrity management.

Lagging to leading events for drilling operation can be presented as progression arrow define by Nafiz Tamim et. al. (2016) in Figure-3

Organizations should develop a process for the identification, review and monitoring of leading & lagging indicators based on the concept of progression arrow defined in Figure-3 and below is an example of a leading indicators identification tree for drilling operation, Refer Figure-4 proposed by Nafiz Tamim et. al. (2016).

Organizations can further evaluate and adopt the below KPI as applicable for Asset Integrity performance monitoring.

• Corporate level lagging KPI “Asset Integrity Index” based on rig level integrity related KPIs e.g., corrosion management, process & procedure Compliance, gas kick, BOP, well control etc.
• Leading KPIs related with SCE management and its integrity status
• Number of processes & procedures in compliance
• Number of anomalies related with barrier/SCE that were not closed out by the planned due date at the end of each quarter
• Number of barrier/SCE not meeting performance standard
• Number of activations of barrier/SCE e.g., gas kick
• Number of barrier/SCE past a planned completion date (barrier/SCE backlog)
• Number of barrier/SCE did not follow MOC process
• Based on KPI monitoring, an organization should develop a dashboard for the clear visualization and reporting of all the identified SCEs, and an overall integrity status.

A typical dashboard reporting for safety critical element based on the swiss cheese model is represented below in Figure-5.

Conclusion

Establishing a structured asset integrity management program is key to managing a major accident hazard. Using the 05-step process as detailed in this paper, an organization can develop a drilling-specific asset integrity program to achieve excellent performance in overall asset management, while addressing the avoidance and mitigation of a major accident hazard.

Mohammad R. Ashraf & Nasser M. Balhareth,
Asset Reliability & Integrity Management Division, Consulting Service Department, Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia