Snorre TLP Operating Experience: Development Of A New Operations Organization
Authors: Unneberg Arild , Bache Bjørn 
Published: October 2008

The successful start-up of the Snorre Field can to a large extent be credited to the establishment of a well prepared and trained operations organization. Often too little time and resources have been set aside to prepare the operations organization for start-up. This has often led to unnecessary start-up problems and added costs. For large and complex production facilities like Snorre, with a lot of new technology and a complicated reservoir, a new approach was required. This paper describes how a new operations organization for Snorre was developed. A small operations planning group was established during the pre-project phase in order to develop operational design requirements. A master plan for operations preparations, similar. to the project execution plan, was established early to give overall strategy and establish a budget basis. Close cooperation with the project team was maintained throughout the design, construction, commissioning and start-up phases.

INTRODUCTION

The Snorre Field was Saga Petroleum's first field development as an operator, and therefore the operations organization had to be transformed and expanded from a small exploration drilling organization to a full-fledged operations organization.

A successful start-up does not only require a well designed and built installation. It also requires that the start-up activities are well planned and with involved personnel well prepared for the job at hand.

This paper describes how this new organization was developed, outlines the operations preparations involved, discusses the cooperation between the project team and the operations organizations and examines some of the early operating experiences.

PRE-PROJECT OPERATIONS PLANNING

During the pre-project phase a small operations planning group was established. The group developed the initial operating philosophy, made general operational design assumptions, estimated platform manning levels and suggested an organization plan for offshore operations. A low manning concept was chosen. These were used as a basis for conceptual design and sizing of the living quarters. The group also made recommendations on platform layouts and operability.

MAIN PLAN OPERATIONS

The establishment of a Main Plan Operations proved to be essential for achieving the main goal -safe and effective start-up of the Snorre Field. It became a major element in operations preparations and can best be compared to a Project Execution Plan. The objective was to create a clear and complete document which:gave the overall strategy,was a documented basis for planning and executionestablished a budget basis, andgave management a tool for follow-up.

The plan took about 10 months to develop and was divided into 28 chapters or tasks considered necessary in order to establish the organization and prepare for start-up:

Organization

organization safety and quality assurance manning plan recruitment and employment training personnel administration

Interface with other organizations

license coordination coordination with Statfjord Field operator coordination with project team interfaces with other departments