Professional Documents
Culture Documents
D E V E L O P M E N T
DEEPWATER-RISER TECHNOLOGY
Offshore reservoirs are being developed in
environments where water depths are
approaching 2000 m and well products
may contain aggressive chemical properties. Semisubmersibles; floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) facilities; tension-leg platforms (TLPs); and
spars are favored configurations in deep
water. While economically more viable
than jackets, the rapid evolution of these
concepts introduces challenging problems
in design of marine-riser systems as well as
in design of station-keeping (mooring) systems. New marine-riser concepts have been
developed to cope with the problems of
operation in deeper water.
MARINE RISERS
A marine riser is a pressure link that transports the well fluid, or one or more of its
components, from the seafloor to a primary
processing platform on the waters surface.
From an engineering-design viewpoint, the
external forces considered during design of
a riser include both static (depth) and
dynamic (currents and waves) water pressure. The motions of the platform under
consideration dictate the displacements
imposed at the waters surface. These
motions are critical in determining the
stresses experienced by the riser along its
length. The ability of a riser system to
accommodate platform motion depends on
both the riser configuration and the material from which the riser is constructed.
PL ATFORM MOTIONS
As Fig. 2 shows, hybrid risers use a combination of two riser concepts. The lower portion of the riser consists of either a single
rigid pipe or a large-diameter vertical cylinder
housing a bundle of smaller production
tubes. These rigid sections extend from either
a flex or stress joint at the seafloor. The distance from the top of this rigid section to the
platform is spanned by flexible pipe.
The rigid section of the riser is constructed with self-buoyancy, reducing the weight
carried by the platform and facilitating rapid
connection and disconnection. Flexible
jumpers complete the link to the platform,
giving the riser inherent compliancy with
the motions of the vessel. Therefore, the
hybrid-riser system is a flexible-riser configuration connected to the top of a rigid riser.
The maximum motion that a hybrid configuration can accommodate is controlled
APRIL 1999
O F F S H O R E
D E V E L O P M E N T
by the depth below the surface of the transition from flexible pipe to the rigid vertical
section. A hybrid riser can be configured to
withstand the same vessel motions as an
isolated flexible riser. The length of flexible
pipe can be increased (and bend restrictors
incorporated) to help the system withstand
large vessel motions.
The hybrid riser has a small footprint on
the seafloor and, overall, may require shorter lengths of pipe to transfer well products
to the surface than steel catenary risers
(SCRs) or flexible risers. The hybrid configuration has potential weaknesses
(including permeation of gases between the
layers of the flexible pipe) associated with
flexible risers. However, with the top of the
rigid section within the air-diving limit,
O F F S H O R E
D E V E L O P M E N T
TITANIUM RISERS
50
APRIL 1999