Predictive Maintenance Prepares Offshore Oil and Gas for Hurricane Season
As hurricane season peaks, offshore oil and gas operators are bracing for potential disruptions. In September 2024, storm-related outages affected 16% of crude oil production in the federal Gulf of America/Mexico.
A company called Shape Digital offers a predictive maintenance platform that detects and diagnoses potential failures and recommends maintenance actions. A recent case on a floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) illustrated its value.
An operator received a vibration-trend alarm on a high-pressure gas compressor, with a diagnosis of a developing imbalance and a projected failure roughly five months out. The team chose to keep the compressor running under continuous monitoring while restoring a second train as backup.
The compressor failed on April 2, 2026, four days from the central estimate made more than five months earlier. By then, a backup system was operational, and the repair was fully resourced. An emergency shutdown became a planned one, preserving an estimated 26,400 barrels of oil equivalent and avoiding roughly 30 days of unplanned downtime.