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This paper aims to provide details of recent developments in robots aimed at applications in the offshore oil and gas industries.

Following a short introduction, this first discusses developments to remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). It then describes the Total-sponsored Autonomous Robot for Gas and Oil Sites (ARGOS) robot challenge. This is followed by a discussion of the Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets (ORCA) programme. Finally, brief concluding comments are drawn.

Subsea residency and other techniques are being developed that will enhance the availability and capabilities of AUVs and ROVs and reduce their operating costs. Mobile robots that can operate in harsh topside rig environments to monitor and detect hazards arose from ARGOS and are being developed further prior to commercialisation. Bringing together academics and users, the collaborative ORCA programme is making significant progress in the development of aerial, topside and underwater robotic and sensing technologies for rig asset inspection and maintenance.

This paper identifies and describes key development activities that will stimulate the use of robots by the offshore industries.

This paper aims to provide details of underwater robot technology and its applications.

Following an introduction, this article first discusses remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technology and applications and then considers their use in the emerging field of deep-sea mining. It then discusses autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology and its applications, including sub-sea gliders. Finally, brief concluding comments are drawn.

ROVs were first developed in the 1950s for military applications. They are now widely used by the offshore oil and gas sector and other industries and are being developed for deep-sea mining. AUV technology has progressed rapidly in recent years and AUVs, including sub-sea gliders, are now emerging from their original role in oceanographic research and finding growing uses in the defence and offshore energy sectors.

This provides a detailed insight into underwater robot technologies, products and applications.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss maintenance challenges and maintenance practices for subsea petroleum production systems.

Maintenance challenges, current practices and factors that influence the maintenance and support practices were identified by a literature review and by using a case study conducted in the Norwegian oil and gas industry. The case study was based on semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews with a number of experts working in the subsea systems’ design, installation and support services in the Norwegian oil and gas industry.

The paper identifies and discusses subsea petroleum production system failures, maintenance, inspection, modification and support practices. Findings from literature are validated, and new challenges are identified and discussed.

The research is based on a case study in the Norwegian petroleum industry, but may be applicable in other countries as well. The subsea production systems are critical production systems, and failures may result in long downtime and costly maintenance, inspection and support services. Hence, inspection, maintenance and modification intervention support services requires careful project planning, implementation and execution, taking into account all influencing factors.

The identified challenges can be used by decision makers in offshore maintenance projects.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a multi-variable analysis (MVA) model for predicting potential delays in the delivery of subsea inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) services.

Based on data from 351 subsea IMR service jobs executed between 2006 and 2008, a MVA model is proposed for predicting the potential delays in the delivery of IMR services in different plausible scenarios.

A model for predicting the delays in IMR service delivery, based on four practical variables that are readily available during the planning phase, was developed and tested. The factors contributing to delays in petroleum subsea IMR services based on importance are: water depth, weather, job complexity, job uncertainty as well as job complexity mix.

The MVA model is developed based on analyzing subsea IMR service jobs performed in the petroleum industry from 2006-2008. The model can be used in the planning stage to predict potential delays in service delivery based on practical variables available.

The research proposes a MVA model for predicting delays in service delivery. The model is useful for predicting potential delays in service delivery and for improving the plan based on model analysis results.

In this chapter, the post-disaster handling of the British Petroleum Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico is analyzed according to the concept of “Public Reserve.” Public Reserve extends the theory of privacy from the individual into the context of corporate behavior and environmental regulation and management by government. Secrecy is viewed as a form of privacy.

Offshore oil and gas pipelines are vulnerable to environment as any leak and burst in pipelines cause oil/gas spill resulting in huge negative impacts on marine lives. Breakdown maintenance of these pipelines is also cost‐intensive and time‐consuming resulting in huge tangible and intangible loss to the pipeline operators. Pipelines health monitoring and integrity analysis have been researched a lot for successful pipeline operations and risk‐based maintenance model is one of the outcomes of those researches. This study develops a risk‐based maintenance model using a combined multiple‐criteria decision‐making and weight method for offshore oil and gas pipelines in Thailand with the active participation of experienced executives. The model's effectiveness has been demonstrated through real life application on oil and gas pipelines in the Gulf of Thailand. Practical implications. Risk‐based inspection and maintenance methodology is particularly important for oil pipelines system, as any failure in the system will not only affect productivity negatively but also has tremendous negative environmental impact. The proposed model helps the pipelines operators to analyze the health of pipelines dynamically, to select specific inspection and maintenance method for specific section in line with its probability and severity of failure.

Firms can choose from an array of approaches for reducing the detrimental financial effects caused by unfavorable fluctuations in commodity prices. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for effectively estimating the financial effects of mitigating commodity price risk volatility (CPV) in supply chain management decisions.

This paper adopts two prominent and complementary methodologies, namely, total cost of ownership (TCO and real options valuation (ROV), to illustrate how commodity price risk mitigation strategies can be analyzed with respect to their effect on costs and performance. The paper provides insights through a case study to demonstrate the application of these methods together and establish the benefits and challenges associated with their implementation.

The paper illustrates advantages and disadvantages of TCO and ROV and how these approaches can be adopted together to contribute to effective purchasing decisions. Supply chain flexibility is a key capability but requires investments. Holistically measuring the financial effects of flexibility investments is imperative for gaining executive management support in mitigating commodity price volatility.

This study can provide supply chain professionals with useful guidance for measuring the costs and benefits related to developing strategies for mitigating commodity price volatility. TCO provides a focus on the costs associated with the commodity purchasing process, and ROV enables the aggregation of all the costs and benefits associated with the use of the strategy and synthesizes them into the net value estimate.

The paper provides a comparison of different but complementary approaches, specifically TCO and ROV, for analyzing the effectiveness of CPV risk mitigation decisions. In addition, these two methods allow supply chain professionals to evaluate and control the financial effects of CPV risk, particularly the impact of mitigation on firm’s cash flows.