Proceedings of the Marine Operations Specialty Symposium 2008

MOSS-26

ANALYSIS OF AN ALTERNATIVE PIPELINE INSTALLATION PROCEDURE THAT COMBINES ONSHORE DEFLECTION AND OFFSHORE TRANSPORTATION
Danilo Machado Lawinscky da Silva1 Rodrigo Almeida Bahiense1 Breno Pinheiro Jacob1

Fernando Gomes da Silva Torres2

1

Antonio Roberto Medeiros2

LAMCSO Laboratory of Computational Methods and Offshore Systems PEC/COPPE/UFRJ danilo@lamcso.coppe.ufrj.br, rodrigo@lamcso.coppe.ufrj.br, breno@lamcso.coppe.ufrj.br PETROBRAS Petrleo Brasileiro S.A. ftorres@petrobras.com.br, robertomedeiros.nsg@petrobras.com.br
2

ABSTRACT Conventional offshore pipeline installation operations in Brazil have been performed in an S-Lay procedure employing the BGL-1 barge, owned by Petrobras. However, this procedure has some limits, and may not be feasible in some particular scenarios. An alternative procedure used by Petrobras is the so-called lateral deflection procedure, which basically consists of performing the pipeline assembly on shore, and then deflecting it to the sea using a tugboat. After that, the pipeline is towed to its installation area. The objective of this work is to present numerical simulations of both stages of this procedure (the lateral deflection procedure itself and the pipeline transportation). The simulations were performed to help planning an actual operation that was scheduled to occur in the Xaru field, at the state of Cear, northeast Brazil. These simulations employ the SITUA-Prosim computational tool, which is able to incorporate the correct definition of the seabed and shore from bathymetric curves. Regarding the transportation stage, typically it is performed using a front and a rear tugboat aligned at the transportation route. As a result of the simulations, a different scheme was proposed, using only one tugboat.

INTRODUCTION The installation of pipelines is among the most challenging offshore operations. The most common method of pipeline

installation in shallow water is the S-Lay method. In this method, the welded pipeline is supported on the rollers of the vessel and the stinger, forming the over-bend. Then it is suspended in the water all the way to seabed, forming the sagbend. The over-bend and sag-bend form the shape of an S. The BGL-1 (a pipeline launching barge owned by the Brazilian state oil company - Petrobras) is used to perform SLay pipeline installation operations. The BGL-1 is a second generation lay barge that performs installation operations by moving forward using its own mooring lines. This involves the definition of a complex mooring procedure, as a sequence of operations that determine the mooring line positions and induce the lay barge movement as it lays the pipeline. Basically, tugboats drop anchors at some predefined positions; then the barge winches release the stern mooring cables, and collect the mooring cables located at the bow. This is a delicate operation essential to keeping the position and direction of the lay barge in accordance with the planned route. The loss of a mooring anchor during such operation can cause sudden yawing or drifting of the barge, which in turn can result in buckling of the pipe at the end of the stinger due the excessive bending. The procedure described above has some limits, such as: i) it has a very restrictive limitation according to the weather conditions; ii) the procedure is extremely complex when performed in congested areas [1]. Therefore, Petrobras has considered an alternative procedure that combines onshore lateral deflection and offshore transportation. This work is focused in the numerical simulation of this procedure. Several analyses are performed in order to assess the behavior of this alternative pipeline installation procedure.

LATERAL DEFLECTION PROCEDURE The lateral deflection procedure basically consists of performing the pipeline assembly on shore and deflecting it to the sea using a tugboat. The characterization of this procedure involves the determination of the better velocity and direction of the tugboat, in order to minimize the efforts on the pipeline (especially due to the curvatures). Scenario and characteristics of pipeline The pipeline was installed to rehabilitate a 10 pipeline that was in the end of its lifetime. The pipeline is located at the Xaru field, interconnecting the PXA-1 platform to the buoy frame, with the basic purpose of transporting the oil production of Xaru, Atum and Curim fields, in Cear State (northeast of Brazil), to the NT ALIANZA Ship. The pipeline has a total length of 721m and was assembled at Canto Beach, in Paracuru city, deflected from shore to the sea, and transported with buoys to the installation location, where it was positioned on the guideline and sunk by flooding the buoys. During assembly, the pipeline was positioned on "bigbags" (bags of sand) as shown in Figure 1.

Therefore, the simulation takes into account the actual bathymetric information and obstacle positions [3,4]. Three-dimensional frame elements were employed in the generation of the numerical model for the pipeline. Threedimensional frame elements were employed also for the representation of the pipe segments with buoys. An equivalent element was used to represent both the pipeline physical properties and the buoy hydrodynamic properties. The characteristics of the equivalent pipeline+buoy element are shown in Table 3. TABLE 1. 10 PIPELINE DATA Parameter Outside Diameter Inside Diameter Yield Stress of steel Modulus of Elasticity of steel Axial Stiffness (EA) Flexional Stiffness (EI) Poisson Coefficient Density of steel Corrosion Protection Corr. Protection Specific Mass Hydrodynamic Diameter Tube Length Weight in Air Weight in Water Value 0.27305 0.2445 414000 207000 2402252.49 20169.39 0.3 77 0.0027 9.32 0.27875 12 0.91099 0.32220 Unit m m kN/m2 MPa kN kN*m2 kN/m3 m kN/m3 m m kN/m kN/m

TABLE 2. 10 BUOY DATA Parameter Diameter Length Weight in Air Buoyancy Value 0.762 1.129 1.2851 3.4138 Unit m m kN kN

TABLE 3. PIPELINE + BUOY DATA

FIGURE 1. PIPELINE ASSEMBLY SCHEME

The physical and geometric properties of the pipeline and of the buoys are presented in the following tables. The buoys were fastened to the pipeline at every 8m measured from the center of each buoy. Numerical Models To perform the analyses of the lateral deflection procedure, Petrobras considered the use of the SITUA-Prosim system. This system has been developed since 1997 [2], in cooperation by Petrobras and LAMCSO (Laboratory of Computational Methods and Offshore Systems, at the Civil Eng. Dept. of COPPE/UFRJ, Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro). It is a FiniteElement based nonlinear dynamic solver, that performs the calculations with an interface with the Petrobras SGO, that comprises a database with the seabed bathymetry and obstacles.

Parameter Outside Diameter Inside Diameter Axial Stiffness (EA) Flexional Stiffness (EI) Hydrodynamic Diameter Weight in Air Weight in Water

Value 0.27305 0.2445 2402252.49 20169.39 0.762 2.23530 -3.06225

Unit m m kN kN*m2 m kN/m kN/m

Performed Analyses Several numerical simulations were performed to guide the lateral deflection procedure. The objective of these parametric studies was to define adequate combinations of tugboat route and velocity for the lateral deflection procedure, Figure 2.

Von Mises (KN/m2)

800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 0 0.0 100.0 200.0 300.0 400.0 500.0

Direction (-5) Direction (0) Direction (5) Direction (10) Direction (15) Direction (20) Yield Stress

600.0 700.0 Pipeline Length (m)

FIGURE 4. VON MISES STRESS IN PIPELINE 2 KM/H

Von Mises (KN/m2) 800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 0 0.0 100.0 200.0 300.0 400.0 500.0 600.0 700.0 Pipeline Length (m)
Direction Direction Direction Direction Direction Direction (-5) (0) (5) (10) (15) (20)

Yield Stress

FIGURE 5. VON MISES STRESS IN PIPELINE 1 KM/H FIGURE 2. DIFFERENT TUGBOAT ROUTES
Traction (KN) 300.0 250.0 200.0 150.0 100.0 50.0 0.0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 Time (s)

Some typical results are shown in the figures that follow: Figures 3, 4 and 5 show the maximum values of Von Mises stresses along the pipeline for several directions and three tugboat velocities (the red line indicates the allowable stress); Figures 6, 7 and 8 show the time-history of the tugboat forces for the same directions and velocities. The complete description and results of these parametric studies is presented in reference [5].
Von Mises (KN/m2) 800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 0 0.0 100.0 200.0 300.0 400.0 500.0 600.0 700.0
Pipeline Length (m)
Direction (-5) Direction (0)

Direction (-5) Direction (0) Direction (5) Direction (10) Direction (15) Direction (20)

FIGURE 6. TENSION IN THE CABLE 3 KM/H

Traction (KN) 300.0 250.0 200.0 150.0 100.0 50.0 0.0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 Time (s) Direction (-5) Direction (0) Direction (5) Direction (10) Direction (15) Direction (20)

Direction (5) Direction (10) Direction (15) Direction (20) Yield Stress

FIGURE 3. VON MISES STRESS IN PIPELINE 3 KM/H

FIGURE 7. TENSION IN THE CABLE 2 KM/H

Traction (KN)

300.0 250.0 200.0 150.0 100.0 50.0 0.0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 Time (s) Direction (-5) Direction (0) Direction (5) Direction (10) Direction (15) Direction (20)

FIGURE 12. TRANSPORT TYPICAL CONFIGURATION

FIGURE 8. TENSION IN THE CABLE 1 KM/H

Lateral Deflection Operation Later, when the actual lateral deflection operation was performed, it could be observed that the pipeline behavior was the same as predicted by the numerical simulations. Different stages of this procedure are shown in Figures 9, 10 and 11.

The objective of the numerical simulations performed for this transportation stage was to verify the pipeline behavior under environmental loadings with the transport configuration defined by Petrobras. In this configuration, shown in Figure 12, two cables with 250m length connect the pipeline and the two tugboats. The tugboats velocities are about 5km/h (aligned at 355o from north). The environmental loads are shown in Table 4. As the pipeline remains totally submerged and the buoys at least 50% submerged, wind effect was not considered. TABLE 4. ENVIROMENTAL LOADS Load Current Wave Azimuth 315o 30o Value 1.19m/s Hs = 1.6m; Tp = 9.5s

FIGURE 9. LATERAL DEFLECTION: INITIAL STAGE

FIGURE 10. LATERAL DEFLECTION: INTERMEDIATE STAGE

The minimum and maximum velocities of tow were defined by Petrobras as 5km/h and 9.26km/h. The maximum velocity was defined to prevent buoy movement on the pipeline. It was verified in previews operations, under similar conditions, that buoys can slip if the tow velocity exceed 9.26km/h. This movement of the buoys makes the pipeline lose buoyancy, and may experience excessively higher curvatures at these points. After several parametric studies, a second configuration was proposed. In this configuration the two tugboats are not aligned, as indicates in Figure 13.

FIGURE 11. LATERAL DEFLECTION: FINAL STAGE

OFFSHORE TRANSPORTATION After the inicial lateral deflection operation was concluded, the pipeline installation procedure proceeded by towing the pipe using a front and a back tugboat aligned at the transportation route, as shown in Figure 12.

FIGURE 13. TRANSPORT - ALTERNATIVE CONFIGURATION

It was observed that, in such configurations, smaller values of cable tensions are obtained when the pipeline is nearly aligned to the resultant direction of the environmental conditions. However, the cable tensions are still relatively high

during the whole operation. In such cases, maximum tensions in the tugboat cable are approximately 51.1kN (5km/h velocity) and 223.9kN (9.26km/h velocity). It was also analyzed a situation in which the back tugboat is disconnected and only the front tugboat is pulling the pipeline. This configuration simulates a situation in which one of the tugboats loses control and its cable is disconnected. The results of the analyses indicated that, for all cases, the maximum values of Von Mises stresses are not an issue, always staying well below the yield stress of the material. The objective then was to minimize tugboat forces. The smaller values of cable tensions were found in configurations where the back tugboat is disconnected. In such cases, tensions in the cable are approximately 19.9kN (5km/h velocity) and 61.0kN (9.26km/h velocity). Therefore, significant reductions were obtained in the cable tension: 61% for the velocity of 5m/s, and 72.8% for the velocity of 9.26km/h. Therefore, the results of the analyses indicated that the best situation occurs when the back tugboat does not tension the pipe, or simply when it is not connected to the pipe. Another smaller boat can accompany the transport operation for safety reasons, and to perform the maneuvers needed for the subsequent pipeline launching process. The pipeline transportation was performed by Petrobras using only one tugboat and all numerical predictions related to the pipeline behavior were confirmed. Different stages of the pipeline transportation are shown in Figures 14, 15, 16 and 17.

FIGURE 15. LOWER TRANSPORT VELOCITY

FIGURE 16. HIGHER TRANSPORT VELOCITY

The maneuvers at installation area are shown in Figure 17. At this time an auxiliary boat is already connected to the pipeline.

FIGURE 14. PIPELINE LEAVING BEACH

The pipeline assumes different configurations depending on transport velocity. The pipeline configuration for the minimum tugboat velocity is shown in Figure 15; the configuration for the maximum tugboat velocity is shown in Figure 16.

FIGURE 17. MANEUVERS AT INSTALLATION AREA

FINAL REMARKS This work presented the results of numerical simulations and parametric studies on the pipeline behavior during some stages of the installation procedure for the pipeline that interconnect Xaru-1 (PXA-1) platform to the buoy frame near the coast of Cear state, Brazil. Such analyses were intended to verify the pipeline behavior during the lateral deflection (when the pipeline leaves the beach), and during transport to the installation area. The results of the parametric studies allowed the definition of the most suitable conditions for each stage of the operation. Regarding the transport stage, it was noticed that the best configuration to transport the pipeline, where tensions in the tugboat cable are minimized, occurs when the pipeline direction is close to the resultant of environmental loads and the back tugboat is disconnected. The pipeline transportation was performed using only the front tugboat and all numerical predictions related to the pipeline behavior were confirmed. A small boat was used just for safety reasons and to help performing the necessary maneuvers during the pipeline installation.

REFERENCES [1] Masetti, I.Q., Barros, C.R.M., Jacob, B.P., Albrecht, C.H., Lima, B.S.L.P., Sparano, J. V., Numerical Simulation of the Mooring Procedures of the BGL-1 Pipeline Launching Barge. Procs of the 23rd International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering OMAE, June 20-25, Vancouver, Canada, 2004. [2] Jacob, B.P., Masetti, I.Q., PROSIM: Coupled Numerical Simulation of the Behavior of Moored Units (in Portuguese), COPPETEC-Petrobras Internal Report, Rio de Janeiro, 1997. [3] __, SITUA-Prosim Program: Coupled Numerical Simulation of the Behavior of Moored Floating Units User Manual, ver. 3.0 (in Portuguese), LAMCSO/ PEC/COPPE, Rio de Janeiro, 2005. [4] SGO User Manual (in Portuguese) Petrobras, Rio de Janeiro, 2002. [5] Silva, D.M.L., Bahiense, R. A., Jacob, B.P., Torres, F.G.S., Medeiros, A.R., Costa, M.N.V., Numerical Simulation of Offshore Pipeline Installation by Lateral Deflection Procedure. Procs of the 26rd International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering OMAE, June 10-15, San Diego, USA, 2007.