Objective
The aim is to re-use existing submarine pipelines during the development of a marginal gas discovery. The existing pipeline will be located, cleared of sand cover, recovered and re-routed to a new location and used for the transport of gas from the new marginal gas field. All subsea operations will be conducted with the use of an ROV in order to make the project diverless, a requirement for operations in deeper waters of the Northern North Sea.
The principle aim of the project is to develop the necessary technology and methods in one specific but vital aspect of developing small accumulations of oil and gas discoveries, generally termed as Marginal Fields.
The exploitation of marginal gas discoveries is already becoming vital to the continuity of the supply of natural gas in particular. This project will help make exploitation of such fields economic in the current and near future economic climate. A secondary aim is a positive contribution to the environment by recycling material instead of creating new and removal quantities of unused metal from the marine environment.
Preliminary engineering has been carried out to assess the feasibility of the project, this study has indicated that it will be possible to carry out the project with the assistance of newly developed ROV interfaced equipment and systems. No further results are available for publication at the present time.
Full engineering has now been completed in order to carry out a full scale test on a section of unused pipeline. A scale test of the of the Delta Wing System was performed in the Delft University Test Tank.
Expected Pipe stress analysis due to wave actions have been carried out.
The size of Oil and Gas discoveries in the North Sea is decreasing, prompting a search for innovative methods and technologies to develop small accumulations economically, in areas where there is an existing infrastructure of platform mounted process facilities and export pipelines. This is particularly true of the Southern North Sea basin where water depths are moderate resulting in many relatively cheap temporary platform developments. One of the major cost items in any marginal gas field development is the pipeline required to transport the gas to shore or an existing infrastructure. The cost of the pipeline can be more than fifty per cent of the total project cost. Clyde Petroleum Exploration BV, a subsidiary of Clyde Petroleum PLC, are the operators of the Q8 block offshore Netherlands in shallow waters of up to 20 metres close to the Dutch coast. In this block Clyde have a Marginal Gas Field development with a re-usable platform and an 8.3 kilometre 8-inch pipeline.
It is Clyde's intention to make use of this pipeline in the same area in order to develop other marginal gas discoveries. The project consists of several elements which have to be developed, proven and then interfaced into a workable solution.
The project requires the pipeline to be uncovered, fitted with buoyancy elements, strain gauges, towing heads and intelligent acoustic transponders for positioning and monitoring, towed to a new location, installed on the seabed, connected to a new platform and commissioned for further use.
The Engineering phase of the operation (Phase I) will be carried out by both KCI in Holland and Seateam Norge in Norway. During this phase, the type of strain gauges, buoyancy units, pipeline clamps, towing heads and methods of attaching them to the pipeline will be looked at in depth.
The requirements for the pipeline can be broken down into the following individual elements :
1. The location and unburying of the pipeline - this will be tested shortly using newdeveloped HAM Flow Dredging system. The pipeline will be located using survey equipment fitted to the deployment vessel.
2. The installation of strain gauges to monitor the stresses on the pipe during towing.
3. The installation of buoyancy elements which can be inflated and deflated via acoustic telemetry.
4. The installation of intelligent acoustic transponders for positioning and monitoring of pipeline attitude
5. The installation of towing heads on each end of the pipeline.
6. The recovery of the pipeline at its present location and towing to the new field.
7. The installation of the pipeline within a pre-determined corridor, tie into the platform, recommission and return to service for the production of hydrocarbons.
Phase II will consist of testing of the individual elements in a test tank with an ROV and then trials offshore on a short section of a disused pipeline. This will be carried out in mid 1998
Phase III of the operation will only be realised when the trials of phase II have been successful. This phase will consist of the repositioning and re-use of the Q8-B 8-inch pipeline.
It is the object of this project to reduce the costs of the pipeline by 40%.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences organic chemistry hydrocarbons
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels fossil energy petroleum
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels fossil energy natural gas
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Coordinator
HR8 1JL
United Kingdom
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