3000 m Water Depth Flexible Pipe Configuration Portfolio

摘要

Since several years, Technip flexible pipe technology has been successfully used in water depths down to 2500 m and a test campaign was completed in 2010, proving its suitability down to 3000 m Water Depth (WD). However, hitherto no complete engineering studies had been conducted in realistic project environment for such WD. The aim of this paper is to deliver optimized flexible pipe configurations using conventional or alternative optimized technologies to reach 3000 m WD. This engineering study has been conducted on realistic project specifications, representative of the Brazilian Offshore Region, adjusted to 3000 m WD with the objective to cover conventional applications such as Oil Production, Gas Injection, and Gas Export. The process was o challenge and push further the engineering and technology to a very detailed level, using these case studies to highlight the benefits of the most cutting-edge technologies. In particular the development of Carbon Fiber Armours (CFA) with high strength/weight ratio, high fatigue performance and corrosion free has opened new frontiers for Ultra Deep Water (UDW) with optimized riser configurations. The result is a portfolio of advanced flexible pipe configurations for a set of applications in a water depth of 3000 m, derived either from conventional configurations, such as Lazy Wave and Free-Hanging, or alternative concepts such as Free Standing Flexible Riser. One of the main conclusions of this engineering study is that the use of Carbon Fiber Armours permits more simple configurations when compared to conventional ones, which has a positive impact on interference issues, simplifies the installation process, by removing the need for buoyancy modules, and finally leads to a global CAPEX reduction. Additionally, the use of the high inertia pressure armour wires, called "PSI", enables considering higher diameters in this water depth by optimizing the weight of the flexible pipe structures. This portfolio aims at anticipating the petroleum industry needs with diversified flexible pipe configurations as well as identifying and adressing the design challenges to address Ultra Deep Water developments.