Zero S/D PM Philosophy: A Novel Approach for Preventive Maintenance in Oil & Gas Industry for Operational Excellence
Authors: Khan Azhar Ahmad , Al-Haddad Abdullah , Al-Harbi Abdullah 
Published: October 2018

Several factors like maturing oilfield, difficult market conditions, etc. are driving E&P companies to attain operational excellence (OE). OE basically requires running operations safely, reliably, sustainably, and cost effectively with a competitive advantage. Preventive Maintenance (PM) has great role in preventing failures, and thereby, it is a key but often ignored in OE discussions. Conventional PM practices are prone to limitations that may negate the fulfilment of requirement of OE. This paper presents a novel approach of conducting PM activities, namely Zero Shutdown (S/D) Philosophy that offers benefits towards fulfilment of all elements of OE.

Conventional PM practices are very expensive and aggravates risks on many counts. Usually, PM is carried out, on fixed intervals, by shutting down entire production facility for long duration (e.g. 42 days). Such S/D causes several problems for an operating company, including the lost production worth billions of dollars. Sense of urgency to finish the entire PM activities in limited time makes it an extra- ordinarily risky mega project involving extra-ordinary mobilization of resources. Numerous different activities happening simultaneously in the same area crowded with large number of work-force and machines, with a time-pressure create additional risks. Further, despite such huge investment & efforts, the risks of uncertainty prevails in successfully completing the scheduled PM because unexpected condition of equipment-internals may require actions that are not planned but require long lead-time. Also, deferring PM activities simply on shutdown schedules, instead of identifying the risks and taking prompt actions, jeopardising the benefit of PM. In both cases, risks of high consequence failures always looms there in view of deferring the PM to next schedule after several years.

Recognising the importance of risk-based inspection and reliability-centred maintenance, and to overcome above kind of limitations of conventional PM practices that cause bottlenecks for OE, a paradigm shift was made from the conventional PM practices. It was conceptualised to conduct all PM activities without shutting down the entire plant, through appropriate planning and by incorporating necessary provisions in the plant. This philosophy, herein, is termed as Zero S/D PM Philosophy, and the paper narrates the transitioning from conventional PM practices to adopting Zero S/D PM Philosophy in Kuwait oilfield, and provides guidelines to attain stepdown procedure for implementing Zero S/D philosophy.

The above mentioned Zero S/D philosophy was successfully implemented for several KOC facilities, and the outcome were found quite beneficial, which shall be discussed in the paper.

This paper promulgates the revolutionary zero shutdown PM philosophy that contributes to OE, and provides guidelines for implementation and disseminate lessons learnt, and best practices regarding PM activities. This also embodies goodwill contribution for betterment in the GCC region, while advancing together with excellence.

OE basically requires running operations safely, reliably, sustainably, and cost effectively with a competitive advantage.