CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Since the oil and gas activities are fast moving into deeper water for exploration,

pipeline materials must be improved in terms of design, selection, assessment,

inspection, and maintenance, among other things, in order to withstand changes

and effects in the marine environment. Crude oils are transported at extremely high

temperatures and pressures, corroding pipelines internal surfaces. Corrosion of

offshore oil and gas pipelines is a serious issue that, if not addressed properly, can

result in catastrophic failure. The aspects to be considered include pipeline

construction, monitoring and maintenance. When offshore pipelines reach the end

of their design life or exceed it, their condition can jeopardize continuous oil flow

due to leaks or ruptures as well as pose a potential safety or environmental danger.

Offshore pipeline plays an important role in oil and gas industry. It is considered as

the most favored transportation mode of crude oil in large quantity. It represents a

high capital investment and functions as blood vessels serving to continuity of

crude oil supply to the oil and gas industry (Paulin, 2018). In fact, it has the highest

capacity and the least environmentally disruptive form for transportation for crude

oil. Pipeline operators has invested large amount of money in managing the

pipeline to ensure the pipeline service availability for the continuity supply of
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crude oil. Therefore, the pipeline failure will cause the shortage supply of crude oil

and affects the economic globally. The price of crude oil will increase

exponentially and give huge impact to related industry such as automotive,

manufacturing and energy.

Due to corrosion, cracking, or other damage mechanisms, some pipelines will

exhibit signs of degradation and ageing. Any assets, such as pipelines, could be

desired to continue transporting hydrocarbons beyond their design life due to

increased oil and gas demand, increases in oil and gas reserves that were not

anticipated and upgrades where new assets are tied-into the current pipeline

system. Other circumstances may compel pipeline operators to preserve the

pipeline's design life despite early pipe wall aging caused by increased corrosion

growth or other anomalies (Poorooshasb et al. 2017). As a consequence, it may be

appropriate to evaluate the pipeline's remaining life in order to decide if it is

capable of meeting current and potential operational demands. The first step in the

assessment process is to define deterioration mechanisms and their rates of

development, after which the collected data on pipeline fault geometry, mechanical

properties, and operating characteristics is used to estimate uncertainties. Several

researches and studies have been done in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of

Guinean, Middle east and other oil rich regions of the world. Numerous inspection

data are available for the reliability assessment of offshore pipelines; but, not much
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has been done for offshore pipelines with the region of Africa. Most times data that

are not site specific are used for the predictive model which does not give a better

picture of the state of the pipelines; hence this study is significant because it is

aimed at developing a predictive corrosion model and reliability model to

determine the wall loss, pit depth and rate of deterioration of the pipeline Klar and

Randolph 2018). Corrosion is one of the most common causes of pipeline

structural failure, according to experts. He demonstrated a method for

automatically modeling the complex geometry needed to reflect actual corrosion

defects using data obtained through inspection. The approach aids in improving the

structural evaluation of corroded pipelines, resulting in better results. more space to

investigate pipelines that have been corroded Nonlinear failure analysis was used

to test the approach, which was compared to semi-empirical approaches and

experimental findings. The outcomes are excellent, and the computation is

appealing (Pike 2016).

1.2 Motivation of the Study

Subsea pipeline are usually embedded in the trench backfilled with pre-excavated

materials. And those trenched pipelines may undergo large lateral displacements

due to the environmental, operational and accidental loads. The displacement could

be caused by ground movement, ice gouging, landslide, drag anchors etc. The

lateral soil resistance against largely displaced pipe is proved to be significantly

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affected by the difference between the stiffness of the backfill soil and native

ground soil, and this is getting back to the interaction between the pipeline-backfill

and trench (Paulin, 2018). There are a number of theoretical and experimental

models availabe to predict the ultimate lateral resistance or force-displacement (p-

y) curves of moving structures (Klar and Randolph 2018), while very few are

specific to pipeline-soil interactions (Poorooshasb et al. 2017). Large discrepancies

are observed in the recommendations provided by different design codes and the

empirical equations proposed in some previous studies for calculation of the

ultimate lateral resistance and the p-y response (Pike 2016). The simplified

assumptions, which ignore the effect of pipeline-backfill-trench interaction, and

inherent differences in the frameworks of the studies conducted, are the main

sources of the observed discrepancies. Besides, the models proposed for prediction

of lateral pipeline response in fine-grained material use the undrained shear

strength as the key soil strength parameter, which may not be appropriate for

slower loading rates where consolidation may occur (Paulin, 2018). It becomes

challenging to make assumptions and to identify the range of assumptions. In order

to make more accurate prediction on the pipeline force-displacement response

within large deformations, a comprehensive investigation is needed to explore the

progressive failure mechanisms around the pipeline considering the penetration

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rates (particularly in drained and partially drained conditions) and the varying

pipeline-backfill-trench interaction effects.

1.3 Objective of the Study

The objective of the study is to assess the offshore pipeline riser system

maintenance strategies. The specific objectives are:

1.4. Scope of the Study

The scope of this thesis is to show the whole cycle of riser management system,

existing maintenance and inspection regimes for workover risers; give brief

information about the riser monitoring systems used in the market and recommend

riser monitoring system establishment strategy.

1.5 Organisation of the Study

Chapter one is the introduction which discusses the topic Pipeline riser which is all

about the background of the study, problem statement, aim and objectives, scope of

the study. Chapter two includes the literature review which focuses on the pipeline-

risers and the previous studies in this area and the related implications for buried

pipeline and the seabed soil and recent management strategies that have been

reviewed. Chapter three narrates the methodology to be used Chapter four is about

the results and discussion of findings while chapter five is on conclusion and

recommendation