Sustainable Decommissioning of Offshore Platforms: a Proposal of Life-Cycle Cost-Benefit Analysis in ItalianOil and Gas Industry

The decommissioning of offshore Oil & Gas platforms, at the end of their life cycle, has been a very controversial topic in recent years. Moreover, the decommissioning complexity increases if we consider a shift towards a linear economy to a circular one. The latter pushes to innovate business models and re-configure the value chain activities in a sustainable way. Starting from these considerations, this work aims to identify a cost-benefit model suitable for evaluating sustainable business models of offshore platforms. After a literature review of different models for analysing maintenance and decommissioning Real Options (ROs), the Life-Cycle Cost-Benefit (LCCB) analysis has been selected as the most adequate managerial tool for evaluating and comparing the Net Present Value (NPV) of platforms compared the maintenance and decommissioning costs. The LCCB tool could aid the managers in the oil and gas industry to quantify the decommissioning and maintenance costs including capital expenditure (CapEx) and risk expenditure (RiskEx). In the future steps, to test the LCCB model, an empirical analysis could be carried out on a sample of organizations interested in the sustainable decommissioning of offshore platforms

A Review of Prognostics and Health Management Applications in Nuclear Power Plants

The US operating fleet of light water reactors (LWRs) is currently undergoing life extensions from the original 40-year license to 60 years of operation. In the US, 74 reactors have been approved for the first round license extension, and 19 additional applications are currently under review. Safe and economic operation of these plants beyond 60 years is now being considered in anticipation of a second round of license extensions to 80 years of operation.Greater situational awareness of key systems, structures, and components (SSCs) can provide the technical basis for extending the life of SSCs beyond the original design life and supports improvements in both safety and economics by supporting optimized maintenance planning and power uprates. These issues are not specific to the aging LWRs; future reactors (including Generation III+ LWRs, advanced reactors, small modular reactors, and fast reactors) can benefit from the same situational awareness. In fact, many SMR and advanced reactor designs have increased operating cycles (typically four years up to forty years), which reduce the opportunities for inspection and maintenance at frequent, scheduled outages. Understanding of the current condition of key equipment and the expected evolution of degradation during the next operating cycle allows for targeted inspection and maintenance activities. This article reviews the state of the art and the state of practice of prognostics and health management (PHM) for nuclear power systems. Key research needs and technical gaps are highlighted that must be addressed in order to fully realize the benefits of PHM in nuclear facilities

Exploring visual asset management collaboration: learning from the oil and gas sector.

Visual Asset Management (VAM) is defined as a visual, collaborative and cloud-based database application for project sharing, viewing, delivery, operation and maintenance. VAM provides a platform that contains multiple visual data sources of an infrastructure project, including Building Information Models, associated asset documentation and 360{deg} photographic images of the asset. This research presents three cases of the use of VAM in major oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, identifying the challenges resolved using VAM, the benefits realised as well as the opportunities for learning and transfer of VAM to the construction industry. The findings demonstrate that VAM can be used effectively to support decision making process during infrastructure project planning and development. The case studies further demonstrated that VAM will be particularly beneficial in facilities management and built asset operation, thereby, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of information for operations and maintenance. Due to the increasingly complex nature of projects in terms of size, information technology and security, realizing these benefits would require a learning process for all stakeholders involved in procuring and managing assets. This research proposes stepped change and learning opportunity for built assets value maximization and delivery, management and operation efficiency using VAM

Big Data and the Internet of Things

Advances in sensing and computing capabilities are making it possible to embed increasing computing power in small devices. This has enabled the sensing devices not just to passively capture data at very high resolution but also to take sophisticated actions in response. Combined with advances in communication, this is resulting in an ecosystem of highly interconnected devices referred to as the Internet of Things - IoT. In conjunction, the advances in machine learning have allowed building models on this ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, devices all the way from heavy assets such as aircraft engines to wearables such as health monitors can all now not only generate massive amounts of data but can draw back on aggregate analytics to "improve" their performance over time. Big data analytics has been identified as a key enabler for the IoT. In this chapter, we discuss various avenues of the IoT where big data analytics either is already making a significant impact or is on the cusp of doing so. We also discuss social implications and areas of concern.Comment: 33 pages. draft of upcoming book chapter in Japkowicz and Stefanowski (eds.) Big Data Analysis: New algorithms for a new society, Springer Series on Studies in Big Data, to appea

Comparative assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of 10 deltas : work document

Background information about: Nile delta (Egypt), Incomati delta (Mozambique), Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (Bangladesh), Yangtze (China), Ciliwung (Indonesia), Mekong (Vietnam), Rhine-Meuse (The Netherlands), Danube (Romania), California Bay-Delta, Mississippi River Delta (USA

Readiness to meet demand for skills: a study of five growth industries

Overview: This study considers issues pertinent to ensuring the Australian education and training system can respond to emerging skills demand in the following industries: food and agriculture; biotechnology and pharmaceuticals; advanced manufacturing; mining equipment, technology and services; and oil and gas. The report finds a widening gap between education and skills demand and highlights the crucial role of employees in developing a skilled workforce, as well as calling for a shift in thinking about the way skills are generated

Electricity Network Scenarios for Great Britain in 2050

The next fifty years are likely to see great developments in the technologies deployed in electricity systems, with consequent changes in the structure and operation of power networks. This paper, which forms a chapter in the forthcoming book Future Electricity Technologies and Systems, develops and presents six possible future electricity industry scenarios for Great Britain, focussed on the year 2050. The paper draws upon discussions of important technologies presented by expert authors in other chapters of the book to consider the impact of different combinations of key influences on the nature of the power system in 2050. For each scenario there is a discussion of the effects of the key parameters, with a description and pictorial illustration. Summary tables identify the role of the technologies presented in other chapters of the book, and list important figures of interest, such as the capacity and energy production of renewable generation technologies

Medium-term National Development Policy Framework: Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA), 2010-2013

In preparing this Medium-Term Development Policy Framework, Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA, 2010-2013), Government responds to the constitutional injunction, which requires that policies leading to the establishment of a just and free society are pursued by the state. Government's Better Ghana Agenda also emphasises the following: expanding access to potable water and sanitation, health, housing and education; reducing geographical disparities in the distribution of national resources; ensuring environmental sustainability in the use of natural resources through science, technology and innovation; pursuing an employment-led economic growth strategy that will appropriately link agriculture to industry, particularly manufacturing; and improving transparency and accountability in the use of public funds and other national resources