The oil and gas industry has a long lead time before new technology is implemented. By not utilizing the advantage of new technology in due time the industry has to carry larger costs.

At the same time, the industry sometimes experiences unpleasant surprises in efforts to apply new technology resulting in cost overruns and delays. This indicates that the oil and gas industry has a potential for improvement when it comes to implementation of new technology.

In 2001, DNV issued DNV-RP-A203 “Qualification procedures for new technology”. This recommended practice has since 2001 been successfully employed in more than 15 qualification programmes for new technology, both on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Moreover, oil companies now make reference to this recommended practice in their internal procedures. DNV-RP-A203 is a generic work process that has mainly been used to qualify systems with emphasis on the reliability of their components.

We are looking into extending the scope of the recommended practice, to acount for the functionality of chemical and physical processes. An important issue to acknowledge when addressing qualification of new chemical or physical processes, is that there will usually be several key performance requirements associated with the processes:

• Production volume / reliability / uptime

• Product quality / output stream properties

• Health, Safety, and Environmental issues

• Operational cost (OPEX) / inspection and maintenance needs / operability / service life

• Initial cost / CAPEX

Both upstream and downstream processes will be addressed, including CO2 capture from power plants.