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The current state of the subsea industry can best be described as confusing - there must be a better way of doing business.

The understanding of decision-making processes is critical in ensuring project success and safety. Project failures—and disasters—can result from the lack of understanding or implementation of sound principles.

Pipelines play a vital supporting role in the energy supply chain as one of the most efficient modes of hydrocarbon transportation. Unconventional resource development and LNG have set the stage for growth in onshore pipelines.

One of the more challenging flow assurance problems in deepwater subsea gas pipelines and equipment is the formation of natural gas hydrates. Gas hydrates form under conditions of low temperatures and high pressures, such as those found in deep water.

Improving the success rates of major projects by ensuring the technical competence of engineers was the subject of a networking event at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston in May.

Although offshore disasters are rare, they have resulted in significant loss of human life, environmental damage, and negative impacts on the larger society. We vow to learn from them, and address the technical challenges, but less often explore the role of culture, such as safety culture.

Physical properties of crude oil, such as gravity, viscosity, and water density, drive the selection of technologies to be used for effective dehydration. For heavy crude oils, process temperature is often increased to lower viscosity, but there are limits, after which alternatives are needed.

Compared to the US industrial average downtime ranging from 3% to 5%, the oil and gas industry’s estimated downtime ranges from 5% to 10%,indicating that improvement is needed in reliability and maintenance of facilities, equipment, and processes.

Process safety is attaining a higher profile in the energy business. I think we are continuing our safety journey and improving our practices and fluency, moving beyond personal safety into integration as a core part of the project, facilities, and construction (PFC) landscape.

The success rates of E&P megaprojects has dropped over the past decade. What is causing this falloff in performance?