A cross-industry project led by DNV GL to halt the boom in subsea documentation shows that implementing a standardised approach can significantly reduce engineering hours.
The two-year collaboration has concluded in a publicly available Recommended Practice that can reduce the amount of subsea documentation and enable documentation reuse in a typical subsea field development project.
Minimum Set of Documentation
DNVGL-RP-O101 "Technical documentation for subsea projects" details a required minimum set of documentation transferred between E&P companies, operators and contractors for the construction, procurement and operation of a field. The outcome will reduce the volume and variety of documentation exchanged between the parties in a project, thereby making project execution more cost effective.
40,000 Documents, 120,000 Transactions
According to a contractor in the JIP, subsea documentation increased by a factor of four between 2012 and 2015. Previously, a contractor in a typical subsea project would deliver around 10,000 documents, with each one averaging three revisions, resulting in up to 30,000 transactions between two actors. Today, projects can deliver 40,000 documents, with three revisions resulting in 120,000 transactions. Handling time has also doubled per revision. A big project may require a contractor to have 25 people just on document control.
Reducing Documentation and Engineering Hours
An increased use of standardised documents could deliver a 42 per cent potential reduction in engineering hours. The potential cut in documentation could be as high as 75-80 per cent.
The JIP partners were Aker Solutions, Brightport, Centrica Energi, DEA Norge, Det norske oljeselskap, DNV GL, ENI Norge, GCE Subsea, FMC Technologies, GDF SUEZ E&P Norge, Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies, Lundin Norway, Oceaneering, OneSubsea, Statoil, Subsea 7, Subsea Valley and SUNCOR Energy Norge.
