Offshore deep-water drilling refers to making holes in seas and oceans deeper than 1000 feet to extract gas and oil. There is a belief that high operation costs, connected with the application of cold stacking, lead to the decline of the sector of offshore drilling. Apart from that, there is a tendency towards the utilization of modernized offshore drilling assets. The current paper provides an overview of topics related to the maintenance and management of offshore drilling assets.
In spite of the existing opinion, the industry of offshore deep-water drilling is experiencing a decline, there is data that proves the opposite. The survey conducted by McKinsey and Company (2019) reveals that non-national oil companies switch their attention from drilling in shallow-water fields to deep-water ones. Therefore, the demand for lifting equipment should steadily increase during the following fifteen years (McKinsey and Company, 2019). In turn, this fact increases the importance of the proper management of offshore drilling assets.
At this point, it should be mentioned that many companies become engaged in cold stacking, which implies leaving a vessel without an entire crew and switching off systems during the development of deposits. The problem with the practice of cold stacking is that in case of failure, reactivation takes a lot of time and brings high-cost risks. Nevertheless, the reviewed book argues that these costs could be minimized by implementing a practical maintenance program. This point is shared by most of the other sources and authors. This program should include procedures related to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). More precisely, an asset left for cold stacking should go through dehumidification, ventilation, and heating (Heinen & Hopman, n.d.). This protects it from excessive humidity and frost.
Another aspect of offshore drilling assets’ maintenance and management deals with the preventive procedures that allow escaping the destruction caused by corrosion. Apparently, during the time of idle, rig owners apply conventional methods of rig stacking that could be insufficient to guarantee the good working conditions of the vessels. Therefore, rig owners should be concerned not only with the number of staff members and equipment but also with the quality and the favorability of conditions in which an asset is placed during the period of cold staking. Undoubtedly, the reduction of crew leads to an immense decrease in costs. Nevertheless, the simple truth that it is easier to prevent than to cure should not be forgotten. Consequently, the appropriate preservation of assets before and during the downtime would not only protect assets from corrosion but also make the process of reactivation faster and less costly.
To sum up, it should be noted that the maintenance and management of offshore drilling assets are more complicated during cold rather than warm staking. This follows from the fact that the owners of rigs when forcing a downtime, cannot be sure how long it will take and when to reactivate a drilling rig. Therefore, they have to solve the dilemma of whether to implement cold or warm staling. Their decision affects the managerial strategy and the procedures that should be applied during idle times. Since warm stacking is significantly more expensive, whereas cold one requires additional protective procedures and turns into a costly reactivation, an owner should search for an optimal compromise between these two options. This way, the costs for maintenance and management of drills could be reduced.
References
Heinen & Hopman (n.d.). Lay-Up / Cold Stack Management. Web.
McKinsey and Company (2019). Offshore-drilling outlook to 2035. Web.