Abstract
The objective of this study is to provide an approach to quantify the environmental benefits of the structural optimization in offshore platform design. As the interest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) has surged among investors and corporate stakeholders, the offshore industry will be able to use the quantitative calculations to demonstrate the effort in addressing climate issues.
Offshore platforms are usually constructed in the yards in East Asia and towed to the installation sites in the Gulf of Mexico, Asia Pacific, Europe, or West Africa. The carbon dioxide emission (CO2) starts from steel production and continues in the construction, transportation, and installation. The environmental impact is measured quantitatively for the structural steel of offshore platforms during its life cycle up to the installation. Three optimally designed offshore platforms are compared with nearly thirty offshore platforms to quantify the reduction of greenhouse gas emission by structural optimization.
The study shows that the optimized offshore platform designs significantly reduced carbon dioxide emission and other environmental impact. The quantified results are comparable to other measures addressing the climate issue. The awareness of ESG has posted additional challenges to the offshore industry. For example, Harvard University has decided not to invest in fossil fuel industry. Recently, ExxonMobile board was challenged by shareholders to address the climate issue. While providing important contributions to the economy and energy demand, the offshore industry needs to embrace the challenges and show the focus on ESG. In the past, structural optimization is usually not prioritized or only for cost and performance objectives of having less material purchase and more payload. Now using the quantitative approach to calculate the reduced environment impact from structural optimization, the engineers will have additional incentives to carry on structural optimizationregarding ESG. The same approach can be applied to designs related to renewable energy like offshore wind turbines to show the benefits in ESG from structural optimization.
The quantitative measures to calculate the environmental benefits of reducing structural weight are provided by this study for the offshore industry. This important tool enables the offshore industry to show the emphasis on ESG to investors and stakeholders starting from the engineering design stage.
