Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - pipelines

Flow assurance is a relatively new term in oil and gas industry. It refers to ensuring successful and economical flow of hydrocarbons from reservoir to the point of sale and is closely linked to multiphase flow technology. Flow Assurance developed because traditional approaches were inappropriate for deepwater production due to extreme distances, depths, temperatures or economic constraints. The term “Flow Assurance” was first used by Petrobras in the early 1990s (Garantia do Escoamento in Portuguese), meaning literally Guarantee of Flow, or Flow Assurance. Flow assurance is an extremely diverse subject, encompassing many specialized engineering disciplines.

Pipeline pigging is actually a form of flow assurance for O&G pipelines and flowlines. This is because the use of pipeline pigging helps maintain subsea pipelines clear of unwanted material or debris that may build up in a pipeline and eventually cause the passage of O&G to slow or even stop altogether if the pipeline is plugged with these materials. This unwanted debris, such as wax and paraffin, when obstructing a pipeline's flow, may cause the subsea pipelines to crack, by increasing the pressure in the pipeline. A highly clogged pipeline section may also cause damage to other sections of the same pipeline, due to pressure increase along the line caused by the decrease in flow along the clogged pipeline section.

Deepwater O&G pipelines, used to transport oil and gas from offshore production units to onshore refineries, are subjected to the corrosive effects of salt water and to massive internal and external pressures. The risk of structural collapse in a pipeline is largely dependent on the levels of internal and external corrosion affecting pipe sections and on the amount of internal and external pressure on the pipe. Corrosion is a time dependent phenomenon that usually requires several years to produce a corrosion defect sufficiently large to cause a significant reduction in the collapse pressure of a pipeline. Consequently during installation it is considered that the pipeline is free of any metal loss due to corrosion.

Petrobras has decided on a novel way to transfer pre-salt oil to export and local market tankers from a maritime operations base. The projects named “Unidade Offshore de Transferência e Exportação”  (UOTE) or Offshore Transfer and Export Unit (OTEU), will work as a floating port terminal. Due to the distance from land of pre-salt plays such as Tupi, which is nearly 300km from the nearest coast. The national operator chose to use an DP enabled FSO anchored in shallow waters, 80 to 90km from the coast Rio, in around 70 meters of water to receive and store production oil from shuttle tankers loaded at the production FPSOs, over the pre-salt plays. The FSO will have a capacity to store 2 million barrels of oil and will be connected to underwater pipelines.

PipeWay is a Brazilian company specializing in pipeline inspection technology and pigging unit manufacture. Starting from a small back room in a Brazilian university, the company has grown to be the leading national pipe inspection company and is also gaining international reputation to boot.PipeWay Internatinal was formed by an alliance between a Brazilian company called PipeWay Engenharia and an American company, to work together in North America. PipeWay Engenharia is the sole company in the Southern Hemisphere with fully national production, which manufactures and operates tools for O&G pipeline inspection-pigs, which check anomalies such as ovalnesses, crushing and corrosions, contributing to avoid leakages that may cause ecological accidents.

The new Subsea 7 pipeline manufacturing facility and spoolbase will mainly serve the deepwater pre-salt developments at the Santos Basin. Subsea 7 has been active in Brazil for 15 years and has its main offices in workshop in Niteroi, in the state Rio de Janeiro and a spoolbase close to the city of Ubu in the state of Espirito Santo. Although construction of the new plant and spoolbase hasn´t started yet, Subsea 7 is only waiting for a state environmental license to begin building what is to be named the Paraná Subsea Construction Park. The company will invest $100 million and expects to create 600 direct jobs at the new site. Subsea 7 earned $2,4 billion worldwide and $848 million in Brazil in 2009.