Saipem

Abstract Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a crucial technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in hard-to-abate sectors, including offshore oil and gas operations. This work provides a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a Carbon Capture and Storage system integrated on a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit to treat the flue gases generated by the onboard power generation. The scope includes both topside installation and subsea infrastructure for transporting CO2 to the storage site. The assessment quantifies emissions from construction and operation over 25 years, evaluating the environmental performance of the entire CCS system as a decarbonization solution for offshore production fields. The study has been structured into the following key phases: System layout analysis to identify the main building blocks.Definition of the system's life cycle phases.Establishment of system boundaries.Design of the system and data collection from various departments.Execution of the LCA and computational analysis. The first 3 steps ensure proper analysis boundaries and avoid missing environmental impacts. System design focused on collecting and calculating technical data—such as weights, materials, and construction times—for all CCS components. The LCA was performed using the midpoint approach and Global Warming Potential over 100 years (GWP100) metric, covering the entire system lifecycle from component fabrication to operation, and adopting a cradle-to-gate perspective for greenhouse gas emissions quantification. The findings provide a comparative evaluation between the investigated system's performance before and after the CCS plant implementation. Moreover, considerations are made quantifying CO2-eq emissions generated throughout the plant's lifecycle in relation with its storage capacity. Considering the results, it can be asserted that the implementation of carbon capture and storage systems for the decarbonization of offshore oil and gas production sites represents an efficient and effective solution. Comparing the emissions generated from the same system before and after CCS implementation, the net CO2-eq emissions reduction results in 87.9% less. Furthermore, even though the construction and operation of such facilities result in notable CO2-eq emissions, the hourly storage capacity of an average-performance CCS system ensures that the additional emissions associated with the installation of such infrastructure are offset within a reasonable and relatively short timeframe. The study of a real case application confirms that carbon capture and storage technology is one of the main solutions of a global strategy against climate change, and it can be immediately deployed for offshore applications. Indeed, while greenhouse gas emissions should be avoided whenever possible, hard-to-decarbonize sectors, such as the offshore industry – which still play a significant role, particularly in the production of energy and raw materials – could achieve a substantially reduced, close to net-zero, climate impact through the implementation of CCS technologies.

R&D (Research and Development) Engineering plays a central role throughout the development of new technologies for offshore applications, following a structured methodology aligned with international qualification standards. Usually, the maturity of technology is assessed by the TRL (Technology Readiness Level) according to a specific standard (in the below figure the API 17Q/ API 17N is used). The R&D effort varies along the TRL scale. It is most intense during the early phases of a new technology: during the inception (TRL 00–01), the R&D team invests heavily in concept validation and feasibility studies and, if necessary, in patenting activities to protect the Intellectual Property. During development (TRL 02–03), R&D drives the design and prototyping, maintaining a high level of engagement to ensure technical robustness, technological risks mitigation, and innovation. As the process moves into industrialization (TRL 04–05), the effort gradually decreases, focusing on environmental and system testing and refining designs for manufacturability and integration of the technology with existing systems. In the final stages i.e., commercialization in executive Projects, deployment and commissioning (TRL 06–07), R&D involvement is more limited but remains essential for support during first offshore installation, integration and field performances validation. This progressive shift ensures that R&D resources are concentrated where they add the most value, enabling a seamless transition from concept to a qualified technology ready for offshore applications. This paper will describe the journey through these TRL steps of the Integrated Acoustic Unit (I.A.U.), a proprietary and innovative technology developed to monitor the pipeline integrity during offshore laying. The paper will start with a brief recap of the inception of the technology, from first TRL steps to the prototype's construction, technology qualification and will mainly focus on the first commercial application of the I.A.U. achieved with the deployment in Scarborough pipelay project. It will provide a summary of the integration, calibration and measurements performed onboard the pipelay vessel, for more than 1-year operations, along with the analysis of the measurements and the performances.

Abstract The Oil and Gas industry is at a crucial stage, geopolitical crises are presenting operators with unprecedented new challenges and increasingly complex risk profiles, where, for example, even deliberate damage has become a prominent threat to consider for their critical infrastructure. When it comes to subsea assets, a comprehensive life-of-field approach is essential, with a special focus on those tasks which first ensure timely safeguarding of the integrity of the asset and ultimately restore production in the fastest manner. Offshore pipeline safety is a critical consideration; a well-structured Emergency Pipeline Repair (EPR) strategy is what is needed to timely respond to an emergency, nevertheless, the EPR domain should not be limited to the availability of repair hardware and associated services; it should also include an integrated Temporary Decommissioning, Isolation and Recommissioning (TDIR) scope and detailed plan. Particularly for Corrosion Resistant Alloy (CRA) pipelines increasingly used by offshore operators, where the allowable time of internal exposure to seawater may be extremely limited (a few weeks), the initial preservation strategy represents the first key task of the TDIR. Such integration is of paramount importance to preserve the pipeline and to minimize overall downtime following a damage event. In this scenario, where time becomes the key driver, every phase following a damage event is an essential part of a well-developed integrated EPR strategy, bringing together the First Reaction, TDIR, preservation and EPR into a unified emergency response framework. A prompt First Reaction to a damage notification may shorten the intervention schedule by weeks. From this perspective, a ready-to-survey diverless technology, not linked to specific vessel requirements, should enhance this critical phase and complement EPR services in support of all the initial survey scope to perform an as-found survey and damage assessment (e.g., location, geometry, leak/no-leak status and seabed interaction). These data are essential to confirm the integrity threat, to select the appropriate stabilization and preservation measures, and to initiate the most suitable repair methodology. This paper highlights the key features of a unified EPR framework, addressing the Critical Success Factors, i.e. Engineering, Technology, Intervention capabilities and Preparedness. These factors are then complemented by the First Reaction to characterize the damage in the quickest time possible and the TDIR to preserve the line for the repair. These two EPR features become essential pieces for complex technological pipelines such as CRA, which are critical assets in the Arabian Gulf subsea infrastructure.

This technical report develops an integrated predictive-analytics framework for capital asset investment decisions in critical infrastructure by combining lifecycle cost, reliability, condition, operational performance, and financial-risk information. The framework responds to a persistent limitation of conventional capital budgeting, in which net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, chronological age, and engineering judgement are often considered without a unified forecast of deterioration and service consequences. Using the supplied five-asset analytical dataset, the study evaluates lifecycle cost, mean time between failures, mean time to repair, annual failure probability, remaining useful life, asset-health indicators, machine-learning performance, a Capital Asset Investment Priority Index (CAIPI), and constrained portfolio allocation. The ensemble predictive model records R² = 0.95 and ROC-AUC = 0.96, while the predictive capital-allocation strategy produces a 41.8% reduction in failure-related expenditure and $13.6 million in lifecycle savings under a $25 million budget scenario. Asset E emerges as the most urgent intervention candidate with CAIPI = 90.7, annual failure probability = 0.62, availability = 87.4%, and predicted remaining useful life = 1.8 years. The findings show that predictive capital planning can improve risk-adjusted investment value by linking engineering deterioration directly with economic consequences and portfolio-level resource constraints.

This paper presents a soil reaction framework for monotonic lateral analysis of offshore wind monopiles in sand, formulated using input parameters that can be derived from seismic cone penetration test (SCPT) data. The model adopts a multicomponent Winkler representation incorporating distributed lateral, distributed moment, and base shear reactions within a unified bounding-surface plasticity formulation. This approach enables direct linkage between soil reaction behavior and site-specific soil properties, namely small-strain stiffness and cone penetration resistance inferred from in situ measurements. Model calibration is supported by an original centrifuge testing program conducted within the Monopile Improved Design through Advanced Cyclic Soil Modeling (MIDAS) project, covering monopile geometries and sand densities representative of offshore wind applications. The calibrated parameter ranges are subsequently evaluated against independent field test data sets from the Pile Soil Analysis (PISA) and VIBRO research programs. Comparisons indicated that the proposed formulation reproduces global load-displacement response and bending moment distributions with satisfactory accuracy across a range of pile-soil relative stiffness conditions. The proposed framework provides a computationally efficient alternative to three-dimensional finite-element analyses for monopile design, particularly during early wind farm development stages when high-fidelity simulations are constrained by time and/or limited soil data.