Re-Evaluation of Tag Safety Critical Status in an FPSO: A Case Study for Recognizing Inconsistencies

Assigning correct ‘safety critical’ (SC) status for tags in offshore production and/or in a process facility is vital for an asset owner. It minimizes not only health, safety & environmental (HSE) challenges but also the wastage in terms of cost, time and effort of maintenance activities. Correct assignment of the SC status for a tag obviates the selection of a tag which does not deserve safety critical status and vice versa. A case study has been carried out to perform a re-evaluation and audit of the safety critical status of the tags which have already been assigned by two engineering contractors (ECs) in a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility designed for offshore oil and gas (O&G) industry. However, the asset owner has discovered a gap between the results of aforementioned SC status assignments which have been carried out by the initial ECs. Hence, the results of initial two SC status assignments have been handed over to a third party engineering contractor for the purpose of re-evaluation and verification. This manuscript maps the work process attached to the reevaluation and verification. Finally, it presents the reasons discovered for the inconsistencies that caused the mismatch in the initial tag SC status assignments.