FPSO-Shuttle Tanker Collision Risk Reduction

Abstract

To reduce the occurrence of tanker drive-off, and to reduce the probability of recovery failure should drive-off happen, are two basic principles to reduce FPSO and DP shuttle tanker collision in tandem offloading. In this paper we focus on measures to reduce recovery failure. Previous analyses revealed that recovery failure probability is high due to a lack of time for the DP operator to initiate the recovery action in a tanker drive-off scenario. To increase the time window and to reduce the operator reaction time are therefore two main principles of recovery failure reduction. A substantial increase of the separation distance between FPSO and the tanker, and a possible reduction of the main propeller(s) forward thrust that can be used by the tanker DP system are two measures to increase the time window. The effective reduction of operator reaction time can be achieved by a number of measures, i.e., selection, training, procedure, crew resource management, and automation support, which are designed to improve early detection as well as effectively reduce the DP operator’s time in diagnosis and situation awareness.