Software solution enables rapid asset data capture for Woodside

Woodside Petroleum is the largest operator of oil and gas production in Australia, and also Australia’s largest independent dedicated oil and gas company. It produces around 900,000 barrels of oil each day from an extensive portfolio of facilities. Woodside’s operated facilities include six liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains, five offshore platforms (one under construction) and four floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels.

The Ngujima-Yin FPSO is currently moored 50 km off the Western Australian coast. Ngujima-Yin is 333 m long and is the largest FPSO in Australian waters. The vessel operates at a depth of 350 m and has a daily production capacity of 120,000 barrels of oil.

Intergraph was engaged by Woodside to help prepare the engineering scope for execution. The engineering information for Ngujima-Yin was found in multiple data sources, including several international locations. Data and documents were inconsistent and in different formats as they were managed differently at each location. There were also multiple versions of drawings and documents, and without a single set of masters, it was difficult to determine the latest and most accurate versions. To bridge this gap and move forward with the safe and effective operation of Ngujima-Yin, an accurate ‘as-is’ status of the FPSO was required.

Woodside chose SmartPlant Fusion, a software solution developed by Intergraph to specifically tackle the challenges of managing unstructured information. SmartPlant Fusion is designed to rapidly capture, organise and make large volumes of previously unstructured information available through a simple web portal interface in a highly organised and intuitive manner. The types of unstructured information include documents, drawings, lists and sheets, 3D models, and even laser scan images and high-resolution photography.

SmartPlant Fusion automatically reads the loaded information as it incorporates many industry standards (such as databases) and new technologies. Over 360,000 documents (at about 1000 documents per hour) were loaded into SmartPlant Fusion as a single source of information, with cross-referenced links to the original files. The Intergraph solution creates associations using unique alias pattern matching, such as tag-to-document relationships, even when the tag name may not be perfect. Woodside could then navigate and view the documents via a web portal interface, as well as analyse the information to determine the set of master versions.

SmartPlant Fusion helps to improve analysis time as it enables the engineer to quickly search on a document and view every version before making an assessment. It also allows multiple users to work within the single master data source, eliminating errors from duplication or working on outdated versions. SmartPlant Fusion contains an integral web-based portal, providing project personnel remote access to live data during the project phase - an important requirement for major projects. It is set up with Woodside’s workflow processes to enable documentation approval and acceptance.

Woodside could also execute field-based data capture using SmartPlant Fusion. The collection of accurate, as-built data is highly important for an existing brownfield asset. This would normally be a tedious and potentially dangerous process as the engineer would have to physically inspect the facility and collect such data. However, as SmartPlant Fusion can capture and organise high-definition surveying information, Woodside could use Leica Geosystems laser scanners to provide an accurate ‘as-exists’ view of the Ngujima-Yin FPSO. Woodside can then compare the as-exists view with the ‘as-is’ engineering information to record the FPSO’s as-built status accurately. SmartPlant Fusion therefore reduced the amount of time required on-site, which helped to reduce costs and improve personnel safety.

SmartPlant Fusion supports the intelligent organisation of unstructured data and documents, and improves the quality and integrity of engineering information. This solution can be easily applied to existing operating assets and brownfield facilities. The as-exists view provided by SmartPlant Fusion can then be integrated with Intergraph’s other SmartPlant Enterprise solutions.