Bentley Systems has announced that Shell’s Deepwater business has selected its digital twin approach to streamline the process of capital projects and accelerate ‘first oil’ time.

Bentley’s iTwin platform covers project conception from early phase design to handover.

According to a statement from Bentley, Shell Deepwater Projects plan is to deliver several subsea tie-back projects over the next 10 years, and has recognised the opportunity of an integrated digital project and engineering site to accelerate capital project delivery and cut project delivery time.

GT Ju, General Manager Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Projects, said: “Shell Deepwater Projects is developing an integrated Workflow and Data Platform from system selection to asset handover to streamline our capital projects processes and accelerate time to first oil.”

He stated that the platform is being developed in partnership with Bentley’s iTwin open, scalable Azure cloud-based platform which provides interoperability across owner and supply chain systems.

“We believe that an end-to-end platform that gives us visibility and transparency to Project and Engineering data across our portfolio will be a key driver to delivering competitive projects,” Ju added.

Commenting on the project, Nicholas Cumins, Chief Product Officer – Bentley Systems, said, ”Bentley’s iTwin platform is ideally suited to providing aligned, secure and visual access to project data across the supply chain and capital projects ecosystem.”

“Shell’s selection of Bentley’s iTwin platform validates our open approach to digital twins and underscores the ability of the platform to scale to the largest, most complex capital projects and dynamic engineering use cases,” he added.