Operation security of a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) in oil and gas processing: possible risk analysis by the methods of fuzzy interference methods

Asfha Amanuel Estifanos, Vaish Abhishek

Quite a number of classifications of hazards (as a phenomenon threatening something or someone) have been drawn up by now. The “hazard” category is differentiated in accordance with various characteristics. These problems have been deeply studied in their relation to technology and industrial engineering. However, in spite of such an ample corpus of theoretical works in risk controlling, the range of unexploited hazards is still significant. The subject of this article is a study of those risk factors that might endanger the safety of floating production, storage and offloading vessels – FPSO. The aim of this research is to assess the said type of risks, as well as to search for the ways of their minimizing, including the development of strategies to provide FPSO safe operation in solving production tasks in oil and gas processing. Within the framework of this study the author applies fuzzy inference systems (FIS) methods to define the FPSO vulnerability to potential hazards. FIS application, in the author’s opinion, is reasonable due to the fact that this system has been developed to obtain fuzzy conclusions on the required facilities control on the basis of fuzzy conditions or prerequisites; hence it might be used in full to define and then neutralize insecurities, including those emerging under definite production and technological conditions. Thus, application of fuzzy inference systems methods has shown that the heater, the crude-oil storage tank and the crude-oil heat exchange unit are the most important factors with regard to potential risks to FPSO.

Keywords:FPSO; oil and gas processing system; risks; risk analysis and FIS.