Performance-based aggregation of expert opinions for reliability prediction of Arctic offshore facilities

One of the major challenges in reliability assessment of Arctic oil and gas facilities is lack of adequate life data. In order to use the available life data obtained in normal climate regions, some modifications are required to include the adverse effects of Arctic operating conditions on equipment reliability performance. In this study, a methodology, based on expert judgement concept, is presented to modify the available mean time to failure (MTTF) data for analyzing the reliability of Arctic oil and gas facilities. For this purpose, expert opinions on the potential amount of decrease in MTTF of a set of components are elicited in the form of distributions. Such opinions are further aggregated using arithmetic averaging rules. A performance-based method is used to assign a weight for each expert based on his/her opinion on some calibration questions. A case study illustrates the proposed methodology.