Facilities life extension has caught the attention among the capital-intensive industries, like oil and gas. By extending the life cycle of the industrial assets, a wide range of benefits is obtained, comparing with other life ending management strategies. This article first contextualizes the implementation of the life extension concept in the oil and gas industry, showing global data about life extension. Despite the importance of the ageing process, due to its great economic impact and the risk it poses to the production sector, regulatory entities, even in countries more advanced in that sector or that have already experienced the extension process, developed only superficial material about the topic without defining a structured methodology for the assessment of the possibility of useful life extension. The available references do not allow a comprehensive analysis of that possibility, which highlights the importance the methodology proposed. Thus, this article proposes a guideline for the life extension process management, strengthening a framework containing the main evaluation stages, aiming to facilitate the analysis of issues related to ageing and to support the decision-making process. Lastly, real case studies regarding current life extension processes submitted to the Brazilian regulatory body were evaluated against the proposed framework stages, evidencing their lack of necessary details to support the decision-making. Upon the realization that the real cases identified do not allow for the assessment of the contribution and adequacy of the proposed framework in its entirety, the same was also applied to a hypothetical case. The latter was developed based on facts reported by a major operator in Brazil. The result was the determination that the use of the proposed methodology transformed the assessment of the possibility of life extension into a systematic and transparent process, leading to easier and better-founded decision-making procedures, and improving the management of the asset during its extended life.

设施寿命的延长引起了石油和天然气等资本密集型行业的关注。与其他寿命终止管理策略相比，通过延长工业资产的生命周期，可以获得广泛的收益。本文首先将寿命延长概念在石油和天然气行业中的实施情况进行了背景介绍，展示了有关寿命延长的全球数据。尽管老化过程很重要，但由于它的巨大的经济影响及其对生产部门的风险，即使是在该部门中较先进的国家或已经经历了扩展过程的国家，监管实体也只开发了有关老化的表面材料。主题，但未定义用于评估使用寿命的可能性的结构化方法。现有参考资料不允许对该可能性进行全面分析，从而突出了所提出方法的重要性。因此，本文提出了延长寿命流程管理的指南，加强了包含主要评估阶段的框架，旨在促进与老化相关的问题的分析并支持决策过程。最后，根据拟议的框架阶段对提交给巴西监管机构的有关当前寿命延长过程的真实案例研究进行了评估，证明它们缺乏支持决策的必要细节。在意识到所查明的实际案例不允许评估所提议框架的整体贡献和充分性后，同样将其应用于假设案例。后者是根据巴西一家主要运营商报告的事实开发的。结果是，确定所提议的方法的使用将对延寿的可能性的评估转变为系统且透明的过程，从而导致更容易和更完善的决策程序，并在资产扩展期间改善了资产管理生活。