Based on offshore operations for remote unmanned platform philosophy, an emergency shutdown (ESD) can only be manually and locally reset by human intervention. Personnel shall be dispatched from the nearest manned facilities to verify that the impacted offshore facilities are safe before manually resetting the fire and gas system and resuming hydrocarbon production. However, sending personnel via boats to remote unmanned platforms can be challenging and pose an increased risk to humans, especially during adverse weather events such as a monsoon, which may prolong to two weeks until weather conditions subside. Furthermore, the fire and gas system at a remote unmanned offshore platform is prone to failure, giving wrong signals and causing the platforms to shut down spuriously, causing unnecessary delays in oil and gas production. This research aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using drones instead of sending personnel to ESD-affected remote unmanned platforms to address spurious ESDs caused by faulty fire and gas detectors. The design references international industry standards of the International Society of Automation ISA TR84.00.07-2018 and the National Fire Protection Association NFPA 72, which resulted in a 5-meter grid track size for the drones to travel and perform the verification process. Economic analysis also demonstrates this research project is viable. Despite the high discount factor of 25%, the net present value remains positive at USD 1.5 million after 15 years, with a healthy profit-investment ratio value at 2.93 for 15 years of operation and a positive internal rate of return of 46%.
Leong et al. (Wed,) studied this question.