A new vehicle system for relative inspection of in-water ship hulls has been developed, wherein a Doppler velocity logger is used to navigate relative to the surface being inspected, and imaging is performed with a DIDSON sonar. The system is capable of working with no compass or external navigation system, and in zero visibility waters. The ability to locate and lock onto a wall, and then perform full-coverage survey is demonstrated in several field tests.
Technology Focus Welcome to the Offshore Facilities feature in this month’s JPT. The three papers featured in this section were selected out of 141 collected covering various elements of offshore-facilities design, construction, installation, operation, and inspection. The first paper covers the design, fabrication, transportation, installation, and startup of a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel in an ultradeepwater location in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel is connected to production and an export gas pipeline with a disconnectable buoy, which allows the FPSO vessel to sail off location in the event of a hurricane. The paper highlights the design features of the installation and some of the project-execution challenges. The second paper describes a technology-development effort to monitor the mechanical integrity of flexible risers in offshore use through a technique called Monitoring Based on Optical Fiber Attached Directly on Armor Wires, or MODA. This is an interesting approach to assess the integrity of the tensile armor at the top section of flexible risers, and the authors summarize years of work in developing the required hardware and data processing. The final paper covers field work performed to ascertain the functional capacity limits of existing equipment on a deepwater platform in excess of the original nameplate limits. It is fairly typical of the industry that, sometime after process facilities are installed, an opportunity to increase production is presented and the engineer must divine the absolute limits of the equipment. This paper presents a nice narrative of one company’s work to answer this question. I hope you enjoy reading these papers. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. OTC 27526 General Design of Lean MEG Storing in the Jacket Legs on Liwan Gas Field of South China Sea by Zhi Xia, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, et al. OTC 27719 Fixed Platforms at Aging Oil Fields—Feasibility Study for Reuse to Wind Farms by J.C. Barros, Genesis Oil and Gas, et al. OTC 27742 Enabling Materials and Corrosion Technologies for Optimizing Offshore Developments by Eric J. Wright, ExxonMobil Production Company
Technology Focus Welcome to the Offshore Facilities feature in this month’s JPT. I had the plea-sure of screening 207 papers submitted to SPE in this field during the past year to come up with the three papers selected for this issue that cover elements of offshore facilities design and inspection. The first paper describes a design case study for split-process floating liquefied natural gas, in which the primary production and gas-treatment functions are provided on a host platform while liquefaction occurs on separate vessels that serve also for storage and trans-port. Splitting the services results in advantages that include facilitating standardization of the liquefaction design and eliminating the need for liquefied-natural-gas-offloading systems designed for open-water conditions. The next paper describes a risk-based approach for application of passive fire protection (PFP) on an offshore structure. Principles of this unified risk-based approach for accidental loadings and its application to fire-response analysis and PFP are explained, and the method is compared against the conventional approach. The third paper covers work performed by the Hull Inspection Techniques and Strategy joint-industry project to develop new floating production, storage, and offloading vessel hull-inspection methods that minimize or eliminate diving. This has been achieved by conducting many of the inspections from inside the hull, using advanced methods to inspect critical isolation valves and marine piping, and inspecting the hull appendages with miniature remotely operated vehicles. The alternative method delivers improved inspection data as well as significant reductions in cost and people on board and minimal weather/sea-state downtime. I hope you enjoy reading these papers. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. IPTC 18373 Adapting the Caspian Factor for the Installation of Petronas’ First Gravity-Based Structure by Khairil Raezwan Rashdi, Petronas, et al. OTC 26481 Development of a Novel Hybrid AUV System for Pipeline Inspection in Gulf of Thailand by Phakhachon Hoonsuwan, PTTEP, et al. OTC 27068 Fuel Efficiency on Floating Production Systems by Jos Bronneberg, SBM Offshore USA
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