TechnipFMC and Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) have signed a new agreement to collaborate on the development of digital applications for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.
The objective of the applications is to “improve LNG plant operators’ ability to reasonably predict when equipment will most likely trip and to estimate at any given time, the risk of overall plant performance reduction,” the duo said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The new development is an extension of BHGE’s Asset Performance Management (APM) software that will enable operators to forecast plant and critical equipment trips per defined intervals, thereby optimizing production and maintenance scheduling.
Building on an agreement signed by BHGE and TechnipFMC in 2016, under the new agreement, BHGE will bring its expertise as a main supplier of rotating equipment for the LNG industry and will provide their digital technology such as the Predix platform and APM software to support these applications.
TechnipFMC will bring its design expertise and engineering knowledge of the different assets that make up an LNG plant.
Based on these contributions, BHGE and TechnipFMC will develop, test, and deploy advanced analytics to provide insights on the plant condition and to optimize the operations, the statement said.
Potential beneficiaries of the new applications include global LNG producing plants and both brownfield and greenfield (floating) LNG projects, it added.