In the last 20 years, Asset integrity and the process Safety have received significant attention, with major incidents like Alpha-Piper of 1968 and the BP fire of 2005 (costing 3.4BUSD and 1BUSD losses with a total of over 180 lives lost) giving rise to new rules and practices. Despite the development of sophisticated technology and management systems in recent decades, significant catastrophes such as Deepwater Horizon, the recent FPSO and some wellhead fires incidents continue to occur.
A retrospective view of these recent events has consistently indicated organisational cultures resulting in a system breakdown.
Asset Integrity Management is the means of ensuring that the people, systems, processes and resources that deliver integrity are in place, in use and will perform when required over the whole lifecycle of the asset.