The industry faces some interesting challenges as it prepares to move into Arctic areas in the years ahead, and there is no basis for complacency or over-confidence in thinking that tools are in place to contend adequately with the challenges this area poses. Floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs) that work where there is ice for all or part of the year face significant design and operational challenges. Where icebergs and ice ridges are present, it is extremely difficult to design a mooring system that can resist largest ice loads, which means a quick-disconnect system is required. Furthermore, because there is virtually no data for typical ice load levels experienced by these large moored vessels, it is difficult to establish reliable guidelines for disconnection frequency and resulting downtime estimates.
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