Abstract

Utilising GIS to aid planning for simultaneous offshore construction operations.
Track: Pipeline and Gas Utilities
Authors: Doug Szczecinski, Keith Hickey

As one of the world's largest natural gas projects and the largest single resource project in Australia's history the Gorgon Project is a massive undertaking.
Developing the Greater Gorgon Gas fields, off the coast of WA will involve the construction and installation of subsea pipelines and wells. As operator of the project Chevron Australia is utilizing GIS to aid the planning of the offshore development phase to avoid schedule clashes and minimise stand down costs. The GIS system offered potential for significant cost benefits by improving planning efficiencies in the coordination of the large numbers of offshore vessels.
ArcGIS10 and Python were used to convert a tabular schedule from Primavera, spatially and temporally enabled the data while testing for potential vessel clashes within the schedule. Utilising the new temporal component of ArcGIS10 in combination with Adobe Flash, interactive movies were created to communicate schedule and schedule changes to Chevron management.