The platform’s train availability was historically poor and the then owner Elf invested considerable effort and succeeded in improving the uptime of compressor trains by 17 points.
The uptime achieved was still unacceptable for the long term and MSE was engaged to explore what could be done to yield further improvements. We visited the platform and carried out a thorough evaluation of the machinery spare parts consumption and failure history.
From our analysis we identified that the main gas compressor train was surging which resulted in repeated thrust bearing failures. Further investigation revealed that the cause was associated with insufficient power being provided by the gas turbine driver.
Compressor washing and later replacement of gas generator allowed the surge to be avoided and has since risen to over 97.5%.
In addition, a number of satellite fields that would otherwise not have been economically viable were developed and integrated into the system.
