A systematic approach with proper statistical analysis techniques for analyzing maintenance data can give insight on how well the performance of the existing system. The objective of this study is to present a methodology for systematically analyzing the maintenance data of offshore gas compressor system to gain insight about the system performance and identify the critical factors influencing the performance. The study approach is based on problem and data-lead rather than technique-driven. The results of trend test propose that the system under studied can be modeled using a simple Homogeneous Poisson process (HPP) process where the failure rate is constant. Analyses of covariates are done using Kaplan Meier and Proportional hazards models. The results indicate that the preventive maintenance (PM) plus engine wash has a significance influence on the system failure distribution. This covariate is found to play a positive role in extending the inter-arrival failure times thus improving the system performance. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.