Optimising data driven analytics and improving pipeline integrity management.

Every operational asset is unique, exhibiting variation in mechanical characteristics, operating conditions, physical location, technical standards and governing legislation which applies to it. Guidance, methods and techniques of identifying threats and managing asset integrity are both well established and improving. However, implementation of integrity management is fragmented within the oil and gas industry.

The interpretation of standards and regulations, implementation of inspection planning and anomaly management can vary significantly between operators and between assets. And the drive for digitisation within the industry in combination with both large amounts of archived records and an ever-growing inspection database are all factors which make a uniform approach to asset integrity management difficult to achieve.

These factors mean adopting a uniform approach to asset integrity management is challenging. ROSEN launched NIMA, their new digital integrity management framework, in 2019 to help meet this challenge.

The NIMA platform provides operators with a digital tool to make secure decision making about the integrity of their assets by enabling an accurate reflection of individual integrity management processes and giving easy access to all pertinent data.

NIMA is designed to provide operators with a structured and tailored level of support to meet their individual demands. From instant remote execution of integrity processes via a custom cloud platform, to expert advice on specific integrity challenges, to the training of personnel, NIMA can be used to support the entire integrity management cycle.

NIMA comes with a certified standard set of templates for the most common integrity management processes. These templates are developed by ROSEN’s in-house expert integrity assessment engineers. NIMA also allows users to digitise their own analogue processes and share them with colleagues - and even with other operators - allowing for individual adaptations.

To help address the challenges faced by operators with ageing subsea assets in the North Sea, the ROSEN Integrity team has investigated ways to utilise the NIMA framework for the optimisation of offshore Pipeline Integrity Management and to provide an almost real time visualisation of asset integrity status. The offshore implementation of NIMA will facilitate integration of multiple data sets, including subsea survey, in-line inspection data and risk-based inspection (RBI) within a single platform that allows for optimised integrity decision support. This will help ensure operators maintain safe and reliable operations while attaining the ultimate goal of zero incidents.

Fully integrated. Isolated software packages, redundant databases and multiple user environments are no longer an issue. Fully integrated, NIMA offers well-defined, understandable and extendable workflow integration. All workflows related to the integrity management process are clearly defined and visible to all users so that they know what the next step is.

Always at your fingertips. NIMA is available as a cloud-based service and allows clients immediate, quick and easy access to information at any time. This software-as-a-service approach is a flexible solution that respects the dynamic nature of decision-making.

Always up-to-date. All relevant data is guaranteed to be the most up-to-date data available from a company’s system of record and can even be downloaded straight from the field.

Heavy lifting. NIMA supports fast integration and processing of huge amounts of data. Don’t worry about big data – let NIMA do the heavy lifting.

Truly transparent. Today’s stringent regulations require now, more than ever, clear documentation of the integrity management process. NIMA supports data analysts, integrity engineers and consultants with a truly transparent way to track down and communicate what has been done in the integrity management process and how it was done.

Clear governance. NIMA is designed to support both the data management and the integrity assessment side of a business. The separation of upload, alignment and analysis of data greatly clarifies and simplifies the governance of data and processes.