Abstract
The background for the study described in this paper is the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authorities (PSA) emphasis on major accidents and barrier management, where maintenance and maintenance management play important parts. Previous studies and the PSA's own supervision have revealed weaknesses and potential for improvement in both barrier management and maintenance management. The PSA therefore conducted studies in 2018 that compiled information regarding the oil and gas companies' status assessment, maintenance and follow-up of safety-critical functions and equipment, including new trends such as digitalization, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) security and new possibilities for data analysis (machine learning, pattern recognition, big data, etc.), also referred to as maintenance 4.0 or predictive maintenance 4.0. In this follow-up study, six selected oil and gas companies responded to a questionnaire on three main topics: i) how to make information on barrier and risk status available, ii) providing information on condition monitoring of early failure development, and iii) information on the extent of digital vulnerabilities and strategies to deal with them. The companies also participated in individual dialogue meetings with the PSA and SINTEF to present, elaborate and discuss the responses. The results in terms of status and challenges for the three main topics are presented along with ten proposals for further work by authorities, oil and gas companies and research institutes.