DEEPWATER RISER FOR HARSH ENVIRONMENT

The growing global demand of energy supply has put oil and gas exploration into
more advance technology. Offshore industry is one of major source of hydrocarbon
energy where the exploration in this region becomes more challenging. Nowadays, oil
and gas sources are found in deeper water depths and in more hostile environments.
This results in the need for more advance technologies for exploration oil and gas.

In offshore Gulf of Mexico, explorations of oil and gas have reached more than
2000m water depth. Independence Hub and Blind faith are some projects that operate
in water depth more than 2000m. BC-10 project in Offshore Brazil is another example
of deepwater field development. The environmental conditions for offshore Gulf of
Mexico and Brazil are rather calm to mild. Typical harsh environmental conditions
can be observed in offshore Norway or North of North Sea. Typical significant wave
height of 15m can be found during storm in this area. The combination of deepwater
and harsh environment such as typical Ormen Lange project becomes the most
challenging field development. Experience and technology for field development in
deepwater and harsh environment are still limited to date.

Independence Hub BC-10

In order to transport production fluids from wellhead to floating production system,

static pipe, which lies on the seabed and dynamic pipe, which is arranged to be
vertical to connect static pipe and FPS, are used. Focus on dynamic pipe which further
named as riser is important for deepwater field development in harsh environment. It
is surprising to observe that riser technology in deepwater is still evolving until now.
Engineers are still trying to produce the most economical design and friendly
technical solution of risers.

Flexible riser has served good performance for typical mid water depth. The ability to
accommodate high curvature and dynamic motions results in well performance to
cope with harsh environment. In addition, flexible riser is easy to install.
Nevertheless, when it comes to deepwater harsh environment, flexible riser is limited
by technical and economical. In deepwater, larger diameter and thicker wall thickness
are required to increase collapse resistance due to high hydrostatic pressure. This
results in increase weight significantly for flexible riser because it consists of a
number of layers. Increase in weight will have impact on increase in load to host
vessel and hence reduce the options for host vessel. Consequently, alternatives to
flexible risers have been eagerly pursued.
 Flexible Riser

Steel catenary riser is one of alternatives solution to flexible riser. Steel catenary riser
which composed only from simple steel pipe is cheaper than flexible and may be used
in greater water depth without disproportionate increase in cost. Lighter weight results
in reduce of vessel payload and increase the options for vessel host. The ability to use
large diameter of pipe increase the collapse resistance in deepwater application and
good performance for high pressure and high temperature field development.
However, dynamic performance of steel catenary riser is rather limited. Heave and
surge motions from vessel will have impact on high bending stress at touch down
point (TDP). In time, cyclic stress caused by wave loading and vessel motion result in
low performance to fatigue damage. A number of solutions have been addressed for
steel catenary riser in deepwater for harsh environment. Weight optimized SCR
[Karunakaran et.al 2005] and lazy wave configuration [Quintin et.al 2007] are some
alternatives solution to deepwater SCR in harsh environment.

Steel Catenary Riser

Hybrid riser is another alternative solution to flexible riser. The combination of

vertical rigid tower from seabed to some level of water depth and flexible jumper that
connects rigid tower to vessel host makes hybrid riser as simple yet robust
engineering solution. It is insensitive to motion induced fatigue. However, flexible
jumpers have limitation to cope with high pressure and high temperature.

Hybrid Riser

Therefore, this present study will focus on technical aspects of steel catenary riser and
hybrid riser, in order to see which configuration is best suited for deepwater field
development in harsh environment.

-To be continued-