Brazilian oil producer reduces downtime by 56.7%

Introduction

Oil and gas equipment has very long service life, and the cost of failures is very high due to production loss and environmental penalties. For these reasons, reliability of oil and gas equipment is paramount.

A Brazilian oil producer used BQR’s consulting services and the apmOptimizer^TM software in order to significantly reduce downtime of a crude oil transfer system.

Challenges

• Analyze the crude oil transfer system with many sub-systems: Pipelines network, Different motorized and manual valves, pumps with electric motors, Oil storage tanks, and sensors.
• Propose changes in system configuration, and optimize maintenance and logistics.

Solution

• The crude oil transfer system model was built based on data from various sources: P&ID, Field failure and maintenance logs, international sources, and experience of experts.
• Statistical analysis of maintenance logs provided equipment failure distributions.
• apmOptimizer^TM software was used to calculate the system performance and optimize the maintenance.

Results

• A recommendation was made to add standby units, critical for availability.
• Optimal Schedule of inspections, preventive maintenance and spares quantities were found.
• Downtime reduced by 56.7%
• Lifecycle cost reduced by 38.1%