Sandy Bonner, President Western Europe at Bilfinger, explores how integrated services and innovative collaboration models are reshaping asset management in the energy sector, offering a pathway to safer, more efficient, and sustainable operations.
The energy industry is at a crossroads. As organisations navigate the dual pressures of operational efficiency and sustainability, the need for innovative approaches to asset management has never been more urgent. Ageing infrastructure, rising costs, and the imperative to align with global sustainability goals are forcing a rethink of traditional models.
A prime example is Torus, a venture launched in 2022 by Bilfinger and nexos – a revolutionary model combining the full range of topside services within one contract.
Torus offers a transformative solution by consolidating operations and maintenance, engineering, construction, integrity inspection, fabric maintenance, access support and MCDR liquidation under a single management philosophy. This model offers a way to extend the life of assets, reduce costs, and improve safety – all while driving the industry closer to its sustainability objectives.
Torus represents a bold reimagining of how late-life asset management can be approached, particularly in the offshore sector. But beyond its operational success, Torus offers valuable lessons for the industry at large, demonstrating the power of collaboration, innovation, and integration in tackling some of the sector’s most pressing challenges.
The Industry Challenge: Ageing Assets in a Changing World
The North Sea, once a symbol of energy abundance, now faces the realities of aging platforms and declining production. Operators are tasked with extending the life of these assets while maintaining safety, reducing costs, and meeting increasingly stringent environmental standards.
Traditional approaches – often reliant on fragmented contractor models – struggle to meet these demands. Disconnected planning cycles, multiple interfaces, and siloed operations create inefficiencies, increase risks, and drive-up costs.
What the industry needs is not just incremental improvement but a fundamental shift in how asset management is approached. This is where integrated services models, like Torus, come into play.
A New Model for Asset Management
At its core, Torus is more than a service provider; it is a strategic partner that redefines how late-life assets are managed. By integrating all services under one management structure, Torus eliminates the inefficiencies of traditional models and creates a framework for innovation and collaboration.
Key Principles of the Torus Model
Single-Point Responsibility: A unified management structure enhances accountability and accelerates decision-making, ensuring that all teams are aligned toward common goals.
Integrated Services: By consolidating scopes and aligning teams, Torus reduces interfaces, simplifies processes, and fosters collaboration. This integrated approach enables faster, smarter, and more sustainable operations.
Campaign-Based Execution: Torus adopts a campaign-based model, which supports offshore assets operating under rolling plan cycles. This approach accelerates project timelines and reduces costs by minimising the need for repeated mobilisations.
The Measurable Impact of Integration
The benefits of integrated services are not just theoretical – they are backed by measurable outcomes that demonstrate their value to operators and the broader industry.
Improved Safety: Integrated teams and streamlined processes reduce simultaneous operations (SIMOPS) and interfaces, leading to a 30% reduction in safety incidents. Sites using embedded contractor/operator teams also report 40% higher near-miss reporting rates, a strong indicator of safety culture maturity.
Cost Savings: Multi-discipline integration and vendor consolidation deliver 20–25% cost savings, while campaign-based execution models achieve 15–20% lower unit costs per activity compared to fragmented business-as-usual scopes.
Accelerated Timelines: Fewer mobilisation cycles and clearer task ownership enable 10–30% acceleration in project schedules, allowing operators to respond more quickly to changing conditions.
Enhanced Productivity: Late-life assets benefit from 30–40% reductions in shutdown durations and 10–15% increases in campaign productivity, ensuring that operations remain efficient and cost-effective.
Lessons for the Industry
These results highlight the transformative potential of integrated services models, offering a blueprint for how the industry can address its most pressing challenges.
By breaking down silos and fostering collaboration, integrated services models create an environment where innovation can thrive. This is particularly important as the industry seeks to adopt new technologies and practices to improve sustainability.
Efficiency and sustainability go hand in hand – streamlining operations not only reduces costs but minimises environmental impact. By consolidating services and reducing mobilisations, Torus demonstrates how efficiency can support the industry’s broader sustainability goals.
The ability to adapt is critical. Integrated services models provide the flexibility and scalability needed to respond to evolving market dynamics, regulatory changes, and customer demands.
The Future of Asset Management
Looking ahead, the principles behind Torus have the potential to fundamentally reshape asset management across the energy sector. As the industry transitions toward more sustainable practices, integrated services models will play a pivotal role in helping operators achieve their goals. By leveraging digital transformation, such as data and predictive analytics, these models can enhance decision-making and optimise asset performance. At the same time, embedding sustainability into every layer of operations – from reducing emissions to improving resource efficiency – will ensure alignment with global environmental objectives. Furthermore, the scalability of this approach opens opportunities for global expansion, enabling the benefits of integrated services to reach new regions and sectors.
The energy industry stands at a critical juncture, facing challenges that require bold and innovative solutions. Integrated services models, like Torus, offer a forward-looking blueprint for extending asset life, improving safety, and driving sustainable growth. More importantly, they highlight the transformative power of collaboration and innovation in addressing the sector’s most pressing challenges. As the industry navigates the complexities of the Just Energy Transition, these models will be instrumental in shaping a more sustainable and resilient future.