The Offshore Technology Risk Solutions Center (Center) is a "think tank" that specializes in improving the safety and reliability (toughness) of the offshore oil and gas industry, from exploration, through production, to delivery. Exponent created the Center to assist the offshore oil and gas industry in refining its approach to regain the trust of the public, and by extension, regulators, and legislators. The goal of this new think tank is to provide independent, objective, and technically-sound solutions to significantly improve the toughness of the offshore industry as a whole.
The Center is based upon the following fundamental concept: Many companies operating globally in offshore basins have experienced a variety of incidents and/or failures over the course of many years, some of which had the potential to result in catastrophic oil spills, even if such spills did not occur. Not all companies have experienced the same types of incidents and/or failures. Although many companies have conducted their own internal risk assessments, or hired outside consultants to perform external risk assessments on their own limited set of available data, there has not been a comprehensive external review based on industry‐wide records of offshore incidents and/or failures. Exponent recognizes the need for such a comprehensive approach and is offering the member companies an opportunity to pool their collective data (in a protected format) and share in the cost of analyzing that data. In the course of performing such an analysis, the Center will define a system reliability model calibrated with the available past performance data.
Services and Deliverables
The Offshore Technology Risk Solutions Center provides its clients with the following services and deliverables:
- Build system risk and reliability model based on industry-wide information
- Identify failure and incident data pertaining to individual elements of the system
- Seek additional data from the member clients as needed to increase the robustness of the model
- Assess system risk to identify brittle (weak) links
- Develop reliability characteristics that could improve subsystem reliability
- Evaluate, in detail, the highest priorities
- Define potential retrofit/toughening measures
- Re-run the system analysis until the desirable toughness is accomplished.
About Exponent
Exponent is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: EXPO) with over 40 years of experience in failure analysis, failure prevention, risk management, engineering and scientific evaluations, and remedial actions. Our multidisciplinary team includes over 600 engineers and scientists with expertise in more than 90 disciplines in a wide range of technical areas, with specific expertise in risk assessment and prevention. Our professionals are well-credentialed and qualified in their fields of specialization.
Exponent has significant experience with high-profile oil and gas projects around the world — both offshore and on. We have been retained in many failure analysis and risk assessment projects, such as the investigation of Occidental Petroleum’s Piper Alpha platform explosion, the sinking of the Alexander Kielland and Ocean Ranger semi-submersibles, the loss of the Typhoon platform, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and mapping the subsurface oil plume from the Ixtoc #1 blowout in the Bay of Campeche, to name just a few oil and gas examples. Our more than 50,000 projects have included investigations of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident and the attack on the World Trade Center, as well as the safety and reliability of nuclear power plants, LNG, and other major manufacturing facilities.
Program Structure
We believe a multi-client approach provides the member companies the opportunity to pool their collective data, talent, and expertise and share in the cost of the program. The engineering and technical expertise of Exponent will combine with some of the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world in an effort to develop solutions that will render the system objectively and credibly tougher than it is today.
Joining the Center
For more information or a Program Prospectus, please contact:
John Stafford, J.D., P.G., Director – Offshore Technology Risk Solutions Center or
Piotr Moncarz, Ph.D., P.E., Corporate Vice President