Digital Twin of Subsea Assets as a Tool for Integrity Management and Risk-Based Inspection: Challenges and Perspectives

Abstract

Abstract Based on the current applications in the oil and gas industry, this paper approaches the main challenges in the development of a Digital Twin for subsea production system assets. Bibliographical research was carried out to select relevant digital twin solutions developed in the different sectors of the oil and gas industry, in order to identify the main challenges, risks and prospects for implementing this type of technology. Furthermore, this manuscript also provides solutions developed by the authors based on the experiences in research, development and innovation of national projects for digital transformation. These solutions contemplate data analysis, connections with databases, definitions of recurrent degradation models in the oil and gas industry. A digital twin can be defined as the digital representation of a system or asset, which calculates states and provides relevant information through integrated models and data, to support decisions throughout the life cycle. In the upstream, whose main activities involve the exploration and production of oil and gas, digital twin can be used as a tool for asset integrity management in the production system and associated with integrity management methodologies such as Risk Based Inspection (RBI). The implementation of a digital twin is a complex task and has several challenges, since it is composed of many models and data that need to be interconnected. However, it is common for data from different sources to be stored on different systems. Another relevant challenge concerns the models associated with digital twins, which are sources of uncertainties. The lack of consistent models and coordination between current physical and virtual models, complex data validation, collection and processing challenges are obstacles in implementing a digital twin. If well implemented, the digital twin can help in the decision-making process related to asset integrity management by following the asset throughout its life cycle. In an RBI approach, it can reduce the OPEX cost of subsea systems. This paper will approach the stages of the development of a digital twin for subsea production systems assets and the main challenges based on recent studies carried out in the oil and gas industry such as the requirement for transparency in data exchange while maintaining security and confidentiality, data-model assimilation, uncertainty and validation of models. In addition, it will be presented the experience acquired by the authors in the development of solutions for integrity management.