Over the past few years, many communications were made by robot manufacturers showing inspection robot prototypes on production sites. As the first autonomous and explosion proof inspection robots become commercial, and even if oil & gas operators are more and more interested, many have difficulty seeing how value can be generated with this new tool. This paper will describe TotalEnergies' journey towards robot implementation on site. TotalEnergies' use of robotics on site comes from a vision of a new operating philosophy where sites will be unattended for very long periods. Based on the activities that need to be done between human interventions, TotalEnergies engaged in the development of different types of robots. Even though robots are new tools, they must comply with existing operating procedures as much as possible to be adopted by field operations teams. Among the points that require special attention for efficient operations, are robot capabilities, mission planning, data post-processing and full integration of the robots into the company's IT systems. The best way to get robots fit for purpose for an oil & gas operator is to be able to weigh in on the robots' specifications by providing the manufacturer challenging use cases. Doing so, features like explosion proof design, autonomy, long arm and more become obvious. Expectations from field operators are quite high when a robot is on site. They imagine that the robot will "start doing things", not realizing that the robot is an empty shell even if it is autonomous. To prepare operations with robots, a digital model of the installation must be available, and a maintenance/operation engineering exercise must be done to highlight the step-by-step instructions that will be given to the robots. The difficulty with the data collected by the robot is that it can rarely be used directly as we do for numerical values coming from transmitters. In most cases, the interesting information like a value, a status open/close or on/off, needs to be extracted from an image, a video or another support by artificial intelligence. Finally, the robot cannot be an independent piece of equipment on site and must be treated like any other package by the site control system. Starting with TotalEnergies' roadmap on robotics, the paper will give feedback on various field trials from different sites, combining altogether nearly one thousand missions. Then, a focus will be made on how to prepare and integrate robotics operations on site to be able to scale up and open this new frontier for improved safety, reduced environmental footprint and costs and increased production efficiency.

Progress in the digital area has been quite significant in the past few years in terms of data monitoring, remote collaborative work, telecommunications and robotics to the point that disruptive ways to operate and to design surface installations can now be envisioned with HSE benefits and substantial cost reductions without compromising production efficiency. Normally Unattended Installations with presence of people on site only once a year (NUI-1Y) for maintenance campaigns is the ultimate aim of unmanned concepts and a new frontier for cost reduction. This approach is particularly relevant for remote production sites where operations usually require a continuous presence of a large crew and heavy logistical means. Although, this concept seems very challenging, it is in fact a natural extension of what has been applied with success on subsea developments starting over twenty years ago where wells, valves, separators, pumps and now compressors have been remotely operated from a host facility, together with the occasional assistance of Remote Operated Vehicles. A NUI-1Y development, in its philosophy, is very similar to a subsea architecture that would be applied to a surface installation. A successful NUI-1Y development would also be the result of an optimization where from the initial design phase, the project would try to reduce as much as possible Site Working Hours, both planned and unplanned. This is accomplished through careful selection of new architectures, a fully electrified concept, extensive use of digitalization, low maintenance and highly reliable components or technologies. These technologies exist or are under development and include autonomous ground robots which can operate in routine or downgraded situations during the period between site visits. Along with the design, traditional operating philosophies must also be amended to address operations in a fully remote mode. This paper will give an overview and examples on how Total is: – Maturing new designs, focusing first on reduction of Site Working Hours as a new Key Performance Indicator, alongside other KPIs such as topside weight reduction and equipment uptime. – Challenging traditional safety concept and bases of design and philosophies which were previously biased towards design and safety of permanently manned installations. This includes developing remote or automated technical solutions that previously required human presence for specific operations. – Piloting autonomous ground robots and adapting installations so that they can be robotically operated.

Normally Unattended Installations with presence of people on site only once per year (NUI-1Y) for maintenance campaigns is the ultimate aim of unmanned concepts and a new frontier for cost reduction. Ground robotics is one enabler of this goal. This new technology is in its infancy and still requires technological and organizational advancements to be readily accepted and supported by the industry. Total fully supports the unmanned concept and has been involved for several years in the development of autonomous ground robots capable of working in potentially hazardous environments. Adopting ground robots in our operations is not only a matter of Technology Readiness Level but also requires expertise on how to use this new technology. Accordingly, the Total roadmap for robotics development focuses on three key areas:–Technology development: Starting from the ARGOS Challenge back in 2014 - Total has been engaged in the development of a new series of robots for anomaly detection / emergency response, and started a Joint Industry Project in 2019 on work class operating robots with simple and complex manipulation capabilities. The anomaly detection robot is now ready to be deployed on operational sites with the first deployment in the UK planned for September 2019.–Operating Experience: Identifying limitations and capabilities of robots is essential to integrating them into our operating concepts. Additionally, Total has set up a robotics development platform where robots are regularly tested and challenged by Field Operations personnel to find new use cases and to share this new technology within the organization.–Reliability: Unmanned design concepts using robots will not be accepted if the robots are not reliable. Therefore, to give confidence to decision makers, long term pilots are planned on several operational sites to gain the thousands of hours of operating experience needed before approving the development of new assets employing this technology. This presentation gives an overview of the Total roadmap on robotics, sharing results of the latest developments and how robots are being integrated in our operating philosophies.

Many oil & gas operators are now seeing unmanned facilities as the next frontier for safer operations and further cost reductions. However, these benefits only appear once the time between site visits is extended as much as possible. In its Next-Generation Facilities concept, Total is pushing the limits by targeting planned interventions only once a year. Tremendous challenges must be tackled to make this concept a reality, from initial lean and robust facility design to management of operations. Subsea installations remain a source of inspiration on many levels, particularly for the handling of inaccessible installations using Remote Operated Vehicles. As a result, Total has been very active in the field of autonomous ground robotics for many years with its ARGOS project. Many other oil & gas operators or robot manufacturers are also following similar paths. Consequently, more and more videos showing a robot on site, tele-operated or not, in the direct sight of a technician in charge of its control have been published. Improving robot capabilities, testing and learning how to handle these new tools is important and a very encouraging signal for the industry, but the integration and cost scaling effect are still to be demonstrated. A step change in the experimentation has to materialize, since one robot alone on a site will not be able to achieve much. Moreover, the reproduction of the scheme ‘one robot/one technician’ is not optimal when numerous robots are involved. Therefore, the addition of a new component in the field architecture in charge of bridging robot site activities and the off-site Control Room is seen as essential to rise to the next level and meet the requirement of the new operating philosophy: continuous operations with multiple robots working simultaneously on an unattended site. Total calls this new function the "Operation Room". In Total's concept, the Operation Room is located next to the existing Control Room which would also become remote. From the Operation Room, robot panel operators, very much like air traffic controllers, will remotely supervise and coordinate the robots that will autonomously perform the very activities that the field operators once used to do on conventional facilities, from routine operation and maintenance tasks to emergency response. This article will give an overview and some examples of how Total has matured the design of its Operation Room concept, including a description of the key elements that have to be addressed to manage a fleet of autonomous robots in an efficient and safe manner from a remote location.

A group of International Oil and Gas Producer (IOGP) members have established the Normally Unattended Facilities (NUF) Task Force aimed to position NUF as safe, cost-effective, widely accepted design and operating method for oil & gas facilities. The establishment of the Task Force was driven by the need to standardize, expand the NUF concept to all type of facilities and ensure industry wide acceptance of NUF standardization. To meet these objectives, the Task Force has produced a white paper to outline the design principles, anticipated challenges and enablers to allow for the implementation of a standard NUF design. NUF will enable oil and gas facilities to be remotely operated in a safe and reliable manner with no crew visitation for determined periods of time. However, this requires a change in the approach to designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining the facility. The NUF Task Force focused on cost compression, unattended duration and sustainability through reduced carbon emissions as key objectives in NUF design optimization. The proposed NUF design will reduce carbon emissions through high reliability, low emission equipment selection and reduction of marine vessels utilization. Technology advancement will allow for lean design, remote control and analysis to efficiently and effectively plan maintenance and optimize operations. Brownfield quick wins will provide avenue for technology maturity, drive for higher reliability and improving overall asset performance. These help in shifting the mindset of personnel involved. Change management is required for governance & procedural changes whilst human retooling will be required for the new skillsets. The main value drivers that support NUF implementation include but, are not limited to, the anticipated reduction in HSE risk exposure to personnel, a substantial reduction in CAPEX and OPEX, and lower greenhouse gases, with reliability better than or equal to attended facilities. Some standards and regulations may need to be revised to enable NUF application. At present, this is being investigated by IOGP under JIP39. NUF concepts can be applied to any facility (onshore and offshore) and will be greatly facilitated by some level of standardization. This would create economies of scale for both the qualification and fabrication of equipment and sub-systems. Substantial potential value drivers supporting the move to a standard NUF approach: HSE Risk reduction due to elimination of personnel during normal operations Potential 20-30% CAPEX reduction in facility cost Potential 20-30% OPEX reduction in operating and logistics expenses Reliability better than or equal to attended facilities Green House Gases (GHG) footprint improvement