Thermoplastic Composite Riser Development for Ultradeep Water

Abstract

Thermoplastic composite pipes (TCP) is a fully bonded pipe structure with a solid wall construction constituted from a single polymer material reinforced with embedded (melt-fused) fibre reinforcements. DNV GL published in December 2015, the new Recommended Practice DNVGL-RP-F119, intended for the design and qualification of Thermoplastic Composite Pipes in offshore applications. This paper describes Airborne Oil & Gas approach to qualifying its ultradeep water TCP products to the new standard. Because of its intrinsic properties, including being lightweight, spoolable, and collapse and corrosion resistant, TCP is very much suited for riser applications. After applications such as a 1" high pressure methanol injection jumper in the North Sea, a 6" flowline for hydrocarbon conveyance off the coast of Sarawak, Malaysia, and a 2" gas lift line in the North Sea, Airborne Oil & Gas has now started the development of TCP for high pressure high temperature dynamic production riser applications. A typical offshore Brazil pre-salt field ultradeep water design premise has been used to assess the feasibility of 6" and 8" free hanging TCP Risers. This was done in close cooperation with a major operator in Brazil and SURF contractor. Global, installation and local analyses of the TCP Riser system have shown the feasibility of installation as well as operations in a free hanging catenary configuration throughout the 30 years’ service life. After technical feasibility had been demonstrated, a detailed business case study was performed in order to quantify the potential CAPEX savings that TCP technology can bring compared to the low lazy wave systems currently installed in pre-salt fields, offshore Brazil. Considerable savings are expected, especially on pipe procurement costs. Further savings on OPEX are also expected and are related to corrosion and biocide inhibition operations.

Composite risers for deep waters using a numerical modelling approach

“…Composite riser design concepts have been established by Airborne and Magma. Airborne developed thermoplastic composite pipes for offshore applications in deep waters (Echtermeyer & Steuten 2013;Smits et al 2018;Onna & O'Brien 2011). Magma has developed the M-pipe, a composite pipe which can be used in various applications (Wilkins 2016;Hatton et al 2013).…”

Review of Composite Marine Risers for Deep-Water Applications: Design, Development and Mechanics

“…Hybrid composites improve composite functionality by allowing the designer to add selectivity, including stiffer, more-expensive fibres where stresses are more critical and less-expensive fibres where stresses are less critical [3,102,117,255]. As water depths have increased and service conditions have become more demanding, manufacturers of nonbonded flexible pipes are attempting to build pipe cross-sections incorporating carbon fibre parts to solve these concerns [342][343][344][345][346][347][348][349][350]. Carbon fibre's most notable application has been in the substitution of heavy and expensive steel parts in nonbonded flexible riser pipes [5,22,119,215].…”

Finite Element Modelling on the Mechanical Behaviour of Marine Bonded Composite Hose (MBCH) under Burst and Collapse

“…These developments exist in recent academic reports and current industrial products from Airborne Oil & Gas, Magma Global, Technip, etc. [41][42][43][44], such as Magma's M-Pipe [45]. However, there is a challenge in applying new dynamic methods for deploying these risers while maintaining a high service life in deep water environments, such as further increasing fossil fuel extraction from harder-to-reach reserves.…”