In case you missed it, here is a summary from our joint presentation with Shell UK at Subsea Expo 2017:
“Shell have encountered low Insulation Resistance faults on installed subsea equipment, but traditional fault identification methods are not always accurate and make finding the causes of low IR labour intensive, time consuming and thus costly. In a drive to seek alternative solutions and utilise new technology to enable cost reduction, maximise the effectiveness and minimise offshore staff and equipment requirements of fault-finding campaigns, Shell held discussions with C-Kore about the suitability of their equipment.
Our first deployment with C-Kore (of four in 2016) was on the Corrib field, we were comfortable trying the tool as it was already at TRL7 and had been used by other oil majors. Although C-Kore was previously used to monitor new umbilical’s during lay, Shell saw its potential as a quick subsea fault-finding tool.
Using C-Kore delivered value to Shell in several ways. Firstly, there was a tangible vessel time saving of approximately 2 days. We requested an engineer for the first deployment, but later were happy operating the equipment ourselves, so there was a personnel saving as well. Secondly, C-Kore gave us an improved diagnostic capability, allowing us to discover additional faults in the field, that would have been masked by the primary fault if traditional diagnostic methods were used. We were also able to gather timestamped diagnostic reports for all the branches and many individual components of the subsea infrastructure, allowing us to identify marginal components for the future IR surveillance and/or proactive maintenance.”
Alex Joseph, Shell UKFor further details please see the Subsea Expo – Presentation Slides:
