Risk-Based Front-End Engineering Design for Improving Safety and Operational Efficiency in Offshore Oil and Gas Production Facilities

Abstract

Front-end engineering design (FEED) fixes most of the lifetime safety, reliability, economic and environmental performance of an offshore production facility, yet these attributes are usually assessed separately after the concept is chosen. This study develops a risk-based FEED framework that evaluates competing concepts on potential loss of life, production availability, net present value and carbon dioxide emissions in a single Monte Carlo model, with analytic hierarchy process and entropy weights, TOPSIS ranking, rank acceptability analysis and an ALARP test. For a reference platform with four concepts, combining bridge-linked accommodation, power from shore and process simplification reduced median potential loss of life by 62 percent and net emissions by 78 percent, maintained availability and cut net present value by about 3 percent. This concept ranked first under all weight sets and in about three quarters of uncertainty-sampled rankings. Safety-only cost-benefit analysis did not justify it, so the ALARP test is necessary but not sufficient for concept selection. Above a carbon cost of about USD 157 per tonne, the safest concept was also the most valuable.