In subsea oil and gas production, unexpected stops result in the loss of valuable production time. Additionally, the cost of intervention in the case of a module breakdown is very high due to the need for specialized intervention vessels and remotely operated vehicles (ROV). It is for these reasons that the equipment is designed and operated in such a fashion that the chance of failure becomes marginally small (large back-off from operational constraints). However, this approach can lead to very conservative operation.

Our idea is to combine health monitoring and process control to find the optimal back-off from the constraints. The goal is to ensure that the RUL (Remaining useful life) of the equipment is not exceeded before the next planned maintenance stop, while maximizing production. We will develop computer models and algorithms to solve this problem.