OSD’s inspection programme of ageing and life extension, known as KP4, was launched to the offshore industry on 28 July 2010. KP4 will run to December 2013 and involves both onshore and offshore inspection of duty holders’ management systems. It is supported by activities to raise the awareness of the significance of ageing, such as;
KP4 is relevant to all installations but particular attention is being given to those which are approaching or have exceeded original anticipated design life.
The programme, which follows on from KP3, will determine the extent to which asset integrity risks associated with ageing and life extension are being managed effectively by duty holders, and will place emphasis on the development and promotion of good practice in the industry to ensure continued safety.
The KP4 Technical Policy describes the principles of asset integrity management of offshore installations to ensure that the risks from major hazards associated with ageing and life extension are properly controlled.
The KP4 Strategy presents the basis of KP4, the methodology to be applied, ageing and life extension issues, the activities to be undertaken, the approach to stakeholder engagement, and the management of the programme.
The inspection programme is subject to periodic review and the inspection programme from April 2012 onwards will be confirmed in due course.
The KP4 inspection process entails an initial onshore inspection which is followed by an offshore inspection to verify findings from the onshore inspection. This represents the beginning of the KP4 inspection process and, subject to the findings, duty holders’ arrangements for the management of ageing and life extension will be monitored in subsequent inspections.
The kick-off meetings are being followed by topic inspections on the ageing / life extension elements of the asset integrity management system. Specialist topic inspections are being performed in the following areas:
The HSE inspections are performed using a set of standard questions for each topic area, referred to as ‘templates’, based on the application of the HSG65 model, to ensure consistency between duty holders in each topic area and between all duty holder topic areas.
The templates can be downloaded from the following links:
Other topic areas may be added in the future, and the current templates may be modified as the project evolves.
Offshore installations on the UKCS by age
Bathtub curve
The KP4 Technical Policy