Comprehensive life extension study for a North Sea FPSO — developing a structured Work Breakdown Structure, Ageing Model Database and service-life profiling across 7,800 individual items to quantify degradation, estimate lifecycle costs and support investment decisions through to Cessation of Production.
The FPSO was approaching a life extension decision point, requiring rigorous, evidence-based assessment aligned to OGUK Ageing and Life Extension (A&LE) guidance. The asset presented significant assessment complexity — with 1,661 individual life extension documents, complex equipment dependencies across topsides and subsea systems, and the need to evaluate fitness-for-purpose across multiple Cessation of Production (CoP) date scenarios. The operator needed a structured, transparent programme to identify and quantify degradation risks, prioritise investment and demonstrate governance of the ageing asset.
Optimal developed a structured Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to define all key assets, systems and their dependencies across the FPSO. A tag scrape identified over 7,800 individual items, which were assembled into sub-systems and rationalised into 511 equipment groups via a Scope Boundary Matrix. An Ageing Model Database was developed to host all assessment data, providing WBS-contextualised outputs including degradation and deterioration patterns, fitness-for-purpose assessment, asset-wide prioritisation and order-of-magnitude cost estimates. Sensitivity analysis was performed against varying CoP dates to support investment planning under different production horizon scenarios.
The operator received a structured, data-rich life extension assessment covering the full FPSO asset base — providing a transparent, OGUK A&LE-aligned evidence base for investment decisions and regulatory engagement. The Ageing Model Database provides a reusable, updatable repository to support ongoing monitoring and future life extension submissions as CoP planning evolves.