e Journal

Issue 4 / 2018

Pipeline Technology Journal

OFFSHORE PIPELINES

www.pipeline-journal.net ISSN 2196-4300

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 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 3

EDITORIAL

“Storms make Pipelines

take deeper roots”
What an outstandingly warm summer this had been. We hope you
could enjoy the sun and recharge your energy levels. Maybe some
of you spent time on the water, including passing wind turbines and
crossing offshore pipelines. However, despite the warmth, parts of
Europe have suffered from severe weather, like dryness, thun- Steffen Paeper
derstorms, and flooding. It has been forecasted that these Senior Offshore
atmospheric disturbances may happen more frequently. Commissioning Engineer

• Is our energy infrastructure, like pipelines and wind turbines prepared

for changing hazardous environments?
• Can these energy carriers coexist, safely, efficiently, and independently?

• What technologies are available for tapping new energy resources in

even more remote areas?

In view of these questions, the actual edition of the Pipeline Technology Journal contains in-
teresting articles about developing and applying an ILI solution for deep water pipelines, re-
searching the stability of pipelines on dynamic seabed, as well as challenging aspects in sup-
plying line pipe to an offshore pipeline construction project and developing pipeline designs for
ultra-deep sea environments.

Likewise, the PTC chairs have received your numerous abstract proposals to the upcoming 14th
Pipeline Technology Conference, from March 19 to 21, 2019 in Berlin. We thank you very much
for your contributions and invite you to participate in a broader collaboration about our mission
of making energy infrastructures safer, more reliable, and prepared for the future. ‘Energie-
wende’ is a German word and translates into various aspects. However, in analyzing the techni-
cal core and discussing long-term solutions for an increasingly involved public we all speak the
same language. Please take advantage of our early bird incentives and register until November
30 for the PTC 2019. By now, we look forward to seeing you all in Berlin next year.

Yours,

> Steffen Paeper, Senior Offshore Commissioning Engineer, South Stream Transport B.V.

Member of the Pipeline Technology Conference Advisory Committee

4 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

OCTOBER 2018 / ISSUE 4

THIS ISSUE’S COMPLETE CONTENT

TECHNICAL ARTICLES
RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Ultra-Deep Water Depth Pipelines: Design criteria for new frontier applications
Luis D’Angelo / Sonia Furtado / Olav Fyrileiv / Leif Collberg 8
DNV GL

Deep Water ILI Tool development and 5 years operational experience

Olivier Gillieron / Basil Hostage / Humberto Rodriguez / Dr. Daniel Schaper 18
Total Exploration & Production / 3P Services

Challenges of a large Offshore Project from a line pipe manufacturers view

Christian Kassel / Dr. Andreas Liessem / Trond Gjedrem 28
EUROPIPE / Nord Stream 2 AG

Cost-Effective Approach for Isolating/Decommissioning Offshore Sour Gas Pipelines

Pooya Gholami / Hadi Tabassomi / Mahdi Nouri 36
IPEC / Pipeline and Process Services

Pipeline Ocensa
Autres pipelines

Applicability of dynamic behaviour studies on Ocensa’s offshore pipeline

Alejandro Marín 50
Oleoducto Central S.A (OCENSA)

INDUSTRY NEWS

• Overpressured Gas Pipelines Caused a Series of Pipeline Explosions in Massachusetts, USA

N

NO NE

6
O E

SO SE

• EDITORS COMMENT: We can’t get back to business as usual after the accident in Massachusetts.
S

REPORTS
CONFERENCES / SEMINARS / EXHIBITIONS

ptj Company Directory 64

 www.linkedin.com/
groups/4740567
ptc 2019 Preview 58
 www.twitter.com/pipelinejournal ptj Job & Carrer Market 62
 www.facebook.com/Pipeline.
Technology.Conference Event Calender 67
 www.pipeline-journal.net
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 5

CONTENT

WORLDNEWS
New Emerson Corrosion Monitoring Solution Longest Gas Pipeline in Nigeria
Enhances Integrity Management For Remote Pipelines Gets the Green Light for Construction

Overpressured Gas Pipelines TAL - Transalpine pipeline com- India and Nepal Begin Build-
Caused a Series of Pipeline missions world’s first crude oil ing A Series Of Pipelines
Explosions in Massachusetts “run-of-pipeline” power plant Between The Two Countries

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Pipeline Technology Journal

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6 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

INDUSTRY NEWS

Overpressured Gas Pipelines Caused a Series of Pipeline

Explosions in Massachusetts, USA
The residents of a small part of eastern Massachusetts were shaken by an natural gas disaster. The people of Lawrence,
Andover and North Andover just south of the New Hampshire border, witnessed dozens of homes explode last Thursday,
while homeowners rushed to evacuate and turn off the gas. State and federal authorities are investigating after at least 60
fires and explosions traced to gas lines erupted Thursday, killing an 18-year-old man and injuring multiple people.

The reason for this incident: too much natural gas was pumped into a section of pipe owned by Columbia Gas, causing the
combustible fuel to leak into homes, authorities said Sunday. The National Transportation Safety Board “can confirm at this
time that this was indeed an overpressure situation,” NTSB Chair-
man Robert Sumwalt said at news briefing.

This violent tragedy hits a region that is already struggling to provide

for its own energy needs. For several years now, local and state gov-
ernments in New England, particularly in Massachusetts, have been
fighting the construction of new natural gas pipelines. The argument
against new pipelines has been an environmental one spiced with
fears of disaster. Thousands of miles of natural gas pipelines in
Massachusetts are leak-prone and need repair, utilities have told
state regulators, highlighting aging energy infrastructure risks.

What happened in Massachusetts is not something previously expe-

rienced. Such a fatal incident has been unprecedented, until now.

EDITORS COMMENT:
We can’t get back to business as usual after the accident in Massachu-
setts. We have to adjust our behavior.
When we think of the reports about the pipeline accident in Massachusetts, we first think of those affected by the accident
who suffered physical damage or even died. And we think of those who, due to the accident, have to continue their lives with-
out the usual atmosphere of safety in their homes, those who will have to wait a long time until everything is back to the way
it used to be prior to the accident.

Such a tragic accident also concerns everyone in the pipeline industry worldwide, because it destroys what we have worked
for so hard in recent years: trust. We will soon have to struggle even harder for that trust, or public perception, when it comes
to laying a new, necessary pipeline or repairing or reconstructing an old one. Such tragedies also destroy efforts to make the
pipeline industry more attractive to junior staff. It will be even more difficult for us in the future to get well-trained employees
to join our industry.

In future, we will therefore have to make even greater efforts to convey to the public, both to the authorities and to the popu-
lation, the impression that pipelines represent only a minor risk if the necessary care is executed in the planning, construction
and operation of pipelines.

We as planners and organizers of a major pipeline technology show and as editors of the international Pipeline Technology Journal
(ptj) have long since recognized this task and have therefore for many years placed our Pipeline Technology Conference (ptc) in
Berlin under the main heading of safety in the pipeline industry. Recently, we have increasingly focused on people and the impact
of our actions on the outside world and have received a great deal of support for it. This support ultimately led us to add two side
conferences to the Pipeline Technology Conference, one on Public Perception and the other one on Qualification & Recruitment.

These measures alone are not enough to achieve and maintain a positive image of the pipeline industry. We need to change our
behavior and to make our safety efforts pro-actively known to the public. We should also strive to take new paths regarding ed-
ucation and training in order to develop the appropriate skill sets among employees at all levels of the pipeline companies. We
can do this, but we have to develop the right instruments and for this we should exchange information on the international level
in lectures and discussions in order to sort out the best solutions for the global pipeline industry and for all of its companies.
VERSATILE.
Always a leading innovator, we supply customers with cutting-edge
diagnostic and system integrity solutions. This, bound with our focus
on flexibility, reliability, cost and quality, leads to offerings beyond
your expectations.

www.rosen-group.com
Luis D’Angelo, Sonia Furtado, Olav Fyrileiv, Leif Collberg > DNV GL

ULTRA-DEEP WATER DEPTH PIPELINES:

DESIGN CRITERIA REVIEW FOR NEW FRONTIER APPLICATIONS

Pipelines in ultra-deep water depth are generally associated with design and installation technical challeng-
es. Research and development efforts to improve reliability and efficiency of subsea pipelines, keeping the
associated risks within an accepted range, are still a must. Improvement of the pipe steel grade quality, man-
ufacturing innovations, installation methods, lay-vessel capacity, and design criteria optimization such as in
DNVGL-ST-F101 (2017) and API-RP-1111 (2015) focusing on the physical failure modes, are very welcome to the
pipeline industry. Such improvements have arisen by the demands from the new frontiers where the pipelines
are required to operate in harsh environments.

The intention of this paper is to review the so-called wall thickness design criteria well established in the oil
and gas industry for ultra-deep water scenarios, reflecting pressures only and constituting the minimum wall
thickness that can be used: the pipeline wall thickness design for pipe pressure containment (bursting), local
buckling (system collapse) and propagating buckling as outlined in DNVGL-ST-F101 and API-RP-1111.

In addition, the safety philosophy and code limitations are discussed, and the main differences are illustrated
using a design example of an ultra-deep water pipeline application. A set of requirements is also shown that
allows for replacing the system pressure test. Such a possibility could reduce costs related to pre-commissioning
by minimizing time spent on offshore campaigns.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 9

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

“
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this article is to review
the wall thickness design criteria for subsea
The installation of subsea pipeline, aimed to transport
oil and gas, is affected by economic, technical and envi-
pipelines outlined by API and DNV GL stan-
ronmental parameters. The basis for the pipeline design dards as well as discuss safety philosophy and
consists of its functional requirements, the definition code limitations. Luis D’Angelo
of the environment, the selection of the mechanical
design, installation method, optimal routing, on bottom the pipeline by its location class and fluid category in
stability criteria, free spanning, pipe-soil interaction compliance with ISO 13623. Location class 1 is the area
and linepipe specification including supplementary where no human activity exists or is very unlikely along
requirements. Other important data parameters include the pipeline route, while location class 2 is the section
flow assurance, pressure containment, design tempera- of the pipeline or riser near the platform area or in areas
ture and pressure, maximum and minimum operating with frequent human presence such as landfalls. To
pressure and temperature, incidental operation details, extend the location class 2, an appropriate risk analysis
corrosion allowance, sweet or sour service definition should be performed; otherwise, a minimum horizontal
and pipeline protection. distance of 500 m is assumed.

Traditional pipeline and riser design codes were based It follows that the “safety class may vary for different
on classical Allowable Stress Design (ASD) format. A construction or operational phases and locations”.
Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) code format, Safety class Low is defined as a failure with small or
based on the limit state design, was then introduced negligible risk of human injury and minor environmen-
and gained importance. Driven by new pipeline devel- tal and financial consequences. Safety class Medium
opments, the LRFD method was introduced in DNV96 is a failure with low risk of human injury, high political
in 1996 as the basis to limit the loading of a structure or financial consequences, and minor environmental
based on the structural reliability approach. pollution. Safety class High is a failure with risk of sig-
nificant environmental pollution, or very high financial
The transformation from classical ASD to the LRFD for- or political consequences and human injury. For each
mat, as discussed by Collberg et al. (2001), expresses the Low, Medium or High safety class, the associated safety
fundamental principle “to verify that design load effects factors are given. The structure shall be designed con-
(LSd), do not exceed design resistances (RRd), for any sidering the probabilities and consequences of failure
considered failure modes and load scenarios”. The design associated with the risk, a combination of probability of
load effect “is obtained by combining the characteristic failure and consequence of failure.
load effects from different load categories and certain
load effect factors. A design resistance is determined by The SUPERB project (Jiao et al. 1996) established
dividing the characteristic resistance by resistance factors the basis for the pipeline structural reliability by collect-
that are dependent on the safety class, reflecting the con- ing a large quantity of statistics data for loads, material
sequences of the failure” (DNVGL-ST-F101). properties and dimensions. Then, the nominal target
probability of failure was determined using Structural
The load and resistance factors depend on the Safety Reliability Analyses (SRA) and reversed engineering
Class (SC), which characterizes the consequences of to determine the inherent safety level of existing pipe-
failure. This philosophy makes a difference when dealing lines with a safety level considered acceptable by the
with challenging ultra-deep water pipelines. From this society at large.
approach, the determination of the selection of charac-
teristic resistance and load effects and the partial safety Per DNVGL-ST-F101, as an option to the specific LRFD
factors introduces a more efficient influence due to the and ASD formats, a recognized structural reliability anal-
material and load uncertainty parameters. ysis-based design method may be applied, if the method
complies with DNV Classification Note No. 30.6. The
SAFETY PHILOSOPHY reliability based limit state shall not be used to replace
the safety factors for pressure containment criterion ex-
The safety factors which depend on the safety class (SC) cept for accidental pressure (applicable to HIPPS based
are the resistance strain factor (ɤ ε), safety class resis- systems). This is in line with ISO 13623 which states that
tance factor (ɤ sc,i), and pressure test factors (α mpt and SRA methods are not allowed to modify the pressure
α spt), as stated by LRFD design format. containment safety factors. DNVGL-ST-F101 Section 2.3.5
explains that “as far as possible, nominal target failure
Consequences to environment, asset and people can probability levels shall be calibrated against identical or
often be achieved based on the content and location similar pipeline designs that are known to have adequate
of the pipeline therefore, DNVGL-ST-F101 recommends safety on the basis of this standard. If it is not feasible,
10 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

the nominal target failure probability level shall be based In line with the discussion of pressure containment, sys-
on the nominal annual probability of failure versus safety tem effects are present for collapse and the minimum
class as given in Table 2-5” Sec. 2.3.5 in DNVGL-ST-F101. thickness, t 1, shall be used. To obtain the nominal wall
thickness, the fabrication tolerance and the corrosion
The table also reflects the higher conservatism in the allowance need to be added to t 1.
pressure containment formulation, as detailed by Agrell
and Collberg (2017). SRA can be used to optimize the Collapse is often only considered for the temporary
safety factors for specific cases and applied on new in- phases where irrelevant corrosion damage exists, and
novative solutions, new technology and deeper waters. as such, the corrosion allowance may be neglected.
However, collapse also might become relevant in the
DESIGN CRITERIA – DNVGL-ST-F101 operational phase, especially for depressurization of
gas lines, and in those cases, should be considered
The limit state design implies that the pipeline design for the operational phase. The collapse formulation
is to be checked for all relevant failure modes. Failure is a combination of the plastic collapse, pp, and elas-
modes vary in criticality and are split into limit state cat- tic instability, pel. Full scale tests have demonstrated
egories; the serviceability limit state (SLS), ultimate limit that welded pipes have a lower collapse capacity than
state (ULS) with the sub-categories fatigue limit state seamless pipes. This has been explained by the fact
(FLS) and accidental limit state (ALS) categories. The that the compressive yield stress is lowered by the
limit state checks are also split into different scenarios expansion forming step of welded pipes due to the
which may include different limit states as given in Table Baushinger effect. The maximum fabrication factor α fab
5-7, Sec. 5.4.1.1 presented in DNVGL-ST-F101. of 0.85 for UOE pipes is recommended to be used as
a penalty for that, per DNVGL-ST-F101. A lot of work by
The pressure containment (bursting) design shall be different pipe manufacturers has been invested in
based on the pressure without pressure drop due to fric- modifying the pipe forming process and taking advan-
tion, and this condition is achieved if the flow is stopped. tage of light heat treatment to achieve a higher fabrica-
The pressure shall be adjusted for the column weight; the tion factor. This illustrates another advantage with the
pressure shall therefore be calculated for every elevation, limit state based format that shows the importance of
referred to as the local pressure. The pressure contain- the compressive yield strength.
ment shall fulfill the equa-
tions (1) and (2) in Table 1.

The local buckling design

implies gross deformation
of the cross section. The ex-
ternal pressure at any point
along the pipeline shall
fulfill the equations (5) to
(8), for the system collapse
check. The weakest section
of a seamless produced line
pipe section may not be well
represented by the minimum
wall thickness since it is not
likely to be present around
the whole circumference. “A
larger thickness, between
t 1 and t 2, may be used for
such pipes if this can be
documented representing
the lowest collapse capacity
of the pipeline” (Sec. 5.4.4.1).
This collapse formulation is
taken from Haagsma (1981)
formula as discussed by
Table 1: DNVGL-ST-F101 Criteria
Murphy and Langner (1985).
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 11

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Propagation buckling is initiated only if a local buckling The combination of the differential pressure load and
has occurred. When the external pressure exceeds the the primary longitudinal load (static and dynamic) shall
propagating buckling criterion, buckle arrestors should not exceed that given by equation (14). API provides a
be installed as the consequences of failure is so extra criterion for maximum differential pressure as well as a
ordinary. This design philosophy is similar to require- formulation to approximate the collapse pressure. The
ments to running fracture of a gas pipeline. The spacing criterion states that the “collapse pressure of the pipe
between the devices is determined based on cost and shall exceed the net external pressure everywhere along
spare pipe philosophy. The propagating buckle criterion the pipeline” per the equation (15).
check shall fulfill the equations (9) and (10) in Table 1
where t 2 is the wall thickness representing local effects. Note that the API collapse factor ratio of 0.7 and 0.6
is identical to the α fab of DNVGL-ST-F101, and similarly
DESIGN CRITERIA - API this ratio may be increased from 0.7 to unity by moder-
ate heat treatment, e.g. during coating. Equations (16)
The criteria used for internal and external pressure through (18) are used to calculate the collapse pressure
by API-RP-1111 are summarized in Table 2. Pressure is and do not include the ovality. API-RP-1111 includes ovali-
interpreted as the difference between internal pressure ty in the combined bending and external pressure criteri-
and external pressure acting on the subsea pipeline. on (19). The collapse factor fc is included in equation (19)
The pressure containment prediction (burst) is based on in API-RP-1111 (2011 edition) to reflect consistency with
equations (11) and (12). The criterion states that the effec- the DNV GL design code. API-RP-1111 defines propagating
tive tension due to static primary longitudinal loads shall buckling as a buckle resulting from excessive bending or
not exceed the value given by equation (13), where the another cause that propagates along a pipeline caused
physical meaning of the term “effective” relates to the by the hydrostatic pressure. The propagating buckle cri-
interaction between the pipe and other structures. terion is given in equations (20) and (21) in Table 2.

CORROSION ALLOWANCE

API-RP-1111 refers to ASME B31.4 for

liquid pipelines, ASME B31.8 for gas
pipelines, and NACE SP 0607 to pre-
vent internal and external corrosion.
It states that a corrosion allowance
for external corrosion is not required
where cathodic protection (CP) is
provided, and for internal corrosion,
the pipe wall thickness may require
a corrosion allowance; however, its
determination is outside the scope of
the recommended practice.

ASME B31.8 states that due to the

corrosivity of hydrogen sulfide and
the frequent presence of carbon diox-
ide and salt water (corrosive), special
emphasis shall be given to internal
corrosion mitigation and monitor-
ing for gas pipelines. It states that
internal corrosion and erosion require
special consideration from case to
case and a combination of inhibitors
and/or corrosion allowance.

Corrosion allowance by DNVGL-ST-

F101 may suit to compensate for ex-
ternal and/or internal corrosion, but is
Table 2: API-RP-1111 Design Criteria
mainly to control that the capacity of
12 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

the pipe is sufficient despite corrosion attacks/defects. PRESSURE TEST PHILOSOPHY

In the case of C-Mn steel components, corrosion allow-
ance may be utilized either alone or in addition to other In API-RP-1111, the maximum operating pressure (MOP)
systems to mitigate the corrosion. shall not exceed the design pressure of any component,
including pipe, valves and fittings. In addition, it shall not
However, for external corrosion protection of continu- exceed 80% of the applied hydrostatic test pressure im-
ously submerged components, cathodic protection is plying a testing after-construction of no less than 125%
mandatory and a corrosion allowance for external cor- of the MOP. To ensure no leaks, the pipeline system
rosion control is then superfluous. A minimum internal must be maintained continuously at maximum test pres-
corrosion allowance of 3 mm is recommended for C-Mn sure for a minimum of eight hours. The design pressure
steel pipes of safety class medium and high transporting is the pressure for which the pipe wall is designed and
hydrocarbon fluids likely to contain liquid water during MAOP is the proof-tested pipe pressure, which must be
operation. For dry gas and other non-corrosive fluids, no less than or equal to the design pressure.
corrosion allowance is required. For C-Mn steel risers of
safety class medium and high in the splash zone a 3mm, In DNVGL-ST-F101, the pressure containment capacity
external corrosion allowance is recommended. shall be ensured by the design criteria and safety fac-
tors. Pressure testing is split into two: strength testing
For risers carrying hot fluids (> 10°C above normal ambi- (mill test for pipe joints and hydrostatic testing of com-
ent seawater temperature), a higher corrosion allowance ponents) and in-situ leak test (pipeline system pressure
should be considered, at least for the splash zone. test). The system pressure test should be 5% above
the local incidental pressure or 3% for safety class low.
It should be noted that a corrosion allowance is a sim- The incidental pressure is typically 0 to 10% above the
plified design approach used in the design phase. More design pressure depending on the degree of control and
detailed knowledge about the corrosion pattern can be accuracy in the pressure safety system. Thus, a system
utilized in bursting integrity assessment in the operation pressure test of approximately 1.15 times the local design
phase in line with DNVGL-RP-F101 or ASME B31.G. Simi- pressure is required for safety class Medium and High at
lar guidance does not exist for collapse capacity. the highest point (given that the test medium density is
higher than α spt * density of the medium in operation of
MATERIAL TEMPERATURE DE-RATING the pipeline system part tested). This difference will nor-
mally increase for deeper sections of the pipeline since
Material temperature de-rating in API-RP-1111 is repre- the test fluid is water with a density greater than that of
sented by the temperature de-rating factor, ft, in equa- most transported fluids.
tion (1) of Section 4.3.1, and is used as a safety factor
on Pb to obtain the hydrostatic test pressure, Pt. The The system pressure test is acceptable by the DNV GL
temperature de-rating factor is specified in ASME B31.8 code if the submarine pipeline system has no leaks,
(2014). Note that API-RP-1111 doesn’t de-rate due to tem- and the “pressure variation is within ± 0.2% of the test
peratures lower than 121°C while DNVGL-ST-F101 applies pressure”. A pressure variation up to an additional
de-rating from 50°C in line with ISO 13623. As discussed ±0.2% of the test pressure is normally acceptable in
by Bredenbruch et al. (2006), the material properties are case the total variation (i.e., ± 0.4%) can be documented
established at room temperature and should be modified to be caused by temperature fluctuations or otherwise
to any temperature deviating from this. accounted for. If pressure variations are greater than ±
0.4% of the test pressure, the holding period shall be
DNVGL-ST-F101 describes material temperature de-rat- extended until a hold period with acceptable pressure
ing in Section 5.3.3.4 and is represented as two factors, variation has occurred.
f u,temp and f y,temp, which are the de-rating values for
the tensile strength and yield limit, respectively. De-rat- Given that a set of requirements are met, DN-
ing values are deducted from SMYS and SMTS to obtain VGL-ST-F101, may allow for replacing the system pres-
a characteristic material strength. These characteris- sure test, per Sec. 5.
tic material strengths, are in turn used throughout for
various limit states. An important observation is that Section 5.2.2.3 states that “for pipelines where the
the de-rating curves proposed in Section 5.3.3.4 of disadvantages with the system pressure test are extraor-
DNVGL-ST-F101 are only there for application in cases dinary, alternative means to ensure the same level of
where no other information is available; material testing integrity as with the system pressure test are allowed by
can be used to lower the de-rating values. agreement. It may be considered when all the following
criteria have been met:
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 13

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

• The pipeline section does not contain non-welded mental test data in Figure 1. Test results from full scale
connections unless these have been separately test- tests used in the SUPERB project comprising Fowler
ed after installation in the pipeline system. (AGA 1990), Vogt et al. (1985), and small scale tests from
• The mill pressure test requirement of [7.5.1] has been Kyriakides and Yeh (1985) and (1987), Johns and McCon-
met and not waived in accordance with [7.5.1.6]. nell (1984), Erica et al. (2012) and several other addition-
• Extensive experience with similar pipelines docu- al large and small scale test results were examined in
menting a good track record with respect to defects the SUPERB project. The collapse pressure for the avail-
and leakages during system pressure test”. able test results in the literature is plotted against the
diameter to wall thickness ratio (D/t) in Figure 1. From
Per Section 5.4.2.1 equation (5.6), the mill pressure levels the plot results, a more conservative approach than API
can be decreased for cases where the “pressure con- is obtained when considering DNV GL with ovalization
tainment criterion is not fully utilized, e.g. installation by and safety factors.
reeling or for ultra-deep water”. Alternatives to test pres-
sure means proving that the same level of safety as with PROPAGATING BUCKLING CRITERION
the system pressure test is allowed by agreement given
that the mill pressure test requirement has been met and The propagating buckling collapse pressure using the
not waived in accordance with requirements presented criterion from DNVGL-ST-F101 (2017) is compared to
in DNVGL-ST-F101 (2017), Section 7.5.1.6. System pres- the pressure obtained using the criterion from API RP 1111
sure test guidelines are given in DNVGL-RP-F115. (2015) and plotted against experimental test data
in Figure 2.
SYSTEM COLLAPSE CRITERION
Test results were obtained from Kyriakides and Yeh
The system collapse pressure using the criterion from (1986), Estefen et al. (1996), Kalmalarasa and Calladine
DNVGL-ST-F101 (2017) is compared to the local buckling (1988), Kyriakides et al. (1984), and Teresinha and Luis
criteria from API-RP-1111 and plotted against experi- D’Angelo (2005).

Figure 1: System Collapse Criteria vs Collapse Testing Results Comparison

14 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Figure 2: Propagating Buckling DNV GL vs API and Test Results

Figure 2 shows the assessment for propagating buck- The following pipeline data are used: water depth (WD)
ling pressure as a function of D/t ratio. For a D/t range at platform of 2,300m, design pressure at platform of
between 10 and 30 and no safety factor included, API is 25MPa, SG gas/oil of 0.30/0.80, export pipeline diame-
slightly more conservative than DNV GL. It is noted that ter 609.6mm, SMYS/SMTU of 448/530MPa and depth at
for API with safety factor 0.8, the result is similar to DNV shore of 12m.
GL with safety factor High,
meaning that for Low and
Medium safety factors, DNV
GL allows for a thinner wall
thickness than API, for prop-
agating buckling, in case one
considers designing.

CASE STUDY

To calculate the required

wall thickness (t), the burst,
system collapse and prop-
agation buckling criteria
need to be evaluated. The
case presented shows the
wall thickness design for
an export pipeline from a
platform to shore using API-
Figure 3: Wall thickness for water depth=2,300m, all Wall thickness design criteria
RP-1111 and DNVGL-ST-F101.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 15

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

The ultra-deep water case

(2,300m) highlights some
distinctions between API
and DNV GL. Figure 3 shows
the resulting wall thickness
by utilizing both design code
formulations, while Figure 4
shows the resulting WT for
the collapse criterion only.

The governing limit state

is the propagating buck-
ling for API-RP-1111 and
DNVGL-ST-F101. This is an
accidental limit state as it
is not expected to occur but
as the consequence of such
Figure 4: Wall thickness for water depth=2,300m, only collapse limit state a failure is so extraordinary,
it is recommended to limit
this consequence by install-
DNVGL-ST-F101 has more design factors than API- ing buckle arrestors with a certain spacing. Hence, if
RP-1111, which means that either an assumption must be the deep-water pipeline segment is designed for local
made or multiple results presented. To provide a com- collapse or burst (whichever is more critical – in this
plete picture the latter option is chosen. example, collapse), the operator should install buckle ar-
restors. The length between the buckle arrestors should
Firstly, the safety class during operation will greatly be based on the cost of spare pipe philosophy. This will
influence the result (see Section 5.3.2.4 Table 5-2 in DNV result in significant savings in the pipeline design phase.
GL). Since the fluid is either oil or gas (normally, oil and
gas will result in the same safety class) and the location
for the flowline is either away from the platform or inside Inspection Solutions
for Non-Piggable Pipelines
the safety area (500m radius), results for both medium
and high safety classes during operation will be present-

World Wide
ed (see Section 2.3.4.3, Table 2-4 in DNV GL). Fulfillment
of supplementary requirement U in DNVGL-ST-F101 will
also influence the resulting wall thickness for pressure
containment (bursting).

The incidental to design pressure ratio, γ inc, must be

determined to calculate the necessary wall thickness.
For a “typical pipeline system” γ inc should be set to 1.10,
in line with API-RP-1111. In the example presented, the
design pressure is used; so therefore γ inc =1.10. This will
not affect the result when collapse is governing.
Self propelled BiDi Tethered Inspection Tool Technology
Even though there are differences in de-rating proce- is a cost efficient approach.
dures in the two documents (API de-rates from 121°C
and up, DNV GL de-rates C-Mn/13Cr steel from 50°C
and 22Cr/25Cr steel from 20°C), no de-rating is per-
formed for the DNV GL calculations in this example as www.ktn.no
Office L ocations:
the pipeline is likely to have an ambient temperature Norway • Germany • France • Spain • Scotland
for the collapse scenarios considered. The reference
height is set to platform so that the hydrostatic fluid
column pressure in the calculation of the local inciden-
tal pressure is considered. KTN NORWAY
Postbox 109
Ytre Laksevåg
5848 Bergen
NORWAY
16 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

For bursting, API-RP-1111

uses one safety level and
considers one wall thick-
ness, while DNVGL-ST-F101
uses safety factors (Low,
Medium and High) that de-
pend on the fluid and the lo-
cation, meaning that differ-
ent values for wall thickness
will be found at the end.

API-RP-1111 has two formula-

tions depending on the D/t
ratio; one limited to D/t ratio
< 15, and the other to D/t ra-
tio > 15. DNVGL-ST-F101 has
only one formulation and the
background documentation
Figure 5: WT for water depth=12m (shore approach), gas - burst limit state
to the API RP1111 does not
indicate why two different
formulas should be used.

When considering local

buckling (System Collapse –
Figure 1), it is seen that API
does not explicitly consider
ovality, and DNV GL with
0.5% ovality predicts almost
the same collapse capacity,
except for D/t ratio between
15 and 30. In the case of the
propagating buckling (Figure
3), for D/t ratio in the range
of 15 and 30, API is slightly
more conservative. For API
with sf = 0.8, the behavior
is similar to DNV GL with a
high safety factor. API has
no D/t ratio limitation while
Figure 6: WT for water depth=12m (shore approach), oil - burst limit state DNV GL’s formulation is lim-
ited to between 15 and 45.
Burst is the governing criterion for the shallower sec-
tions, per both API and DNV GL, as shown in Figure 5 From the case study presented for the ultra-deep water
and 6 respectively. It is noted that for DNV GL for safety (2,300m), the resulting WT is lowest for DNV GL safety
class Low and Medium, the wall thickness calculated is class Low and Medium (oil and gas) followed by API
less conservative than that API for oil and gas, except for (oil and gas). If collapse criterion is chosen, DNV GL
safety class High or if considering corrosion allowance is lowest for low SC (oil and gas) including tolerances,
for Medium and High. followed by API (oil and gas). For Medium and High, all
wall thicknesses are in the same area with the thinnest
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS being 30.1mm to the thickest being 31.9mm (DNV GL
safety class High).
The question that is asked while designing a pipeline
is what is the best design code: the one that gives the Our conclusion from this study is that DNV GL permits
thickest or the thinnest wall thickness? It can be argued a more flexible and less conservative wall thickness, es-
that a relevant question is around consistency (i.e., pecially for ultra-deep water pipeline, due to the estab-
non-varying safety level) and philosophy. lished safety philosophy.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 17

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Also, the possibility to reduce test pressure levels (both

mill test and system pressure test) or waive/ replace ei-
ther the mill or system pressure test, given that a set of
requirements are met, speaks in favor of DNV GL code, References
being a flexible code that rewards extra effort in other • Aamlid Olav, Collberg Leif and Slater Simon: “Collapse Capacity of UOE Deepwater Linepipe”,
OMAE 2011.
quality control aspects of the design and manufacturing • API-RP-1111: “Design, Construction, Operation and Maintenance of Offshore Hydrocarbon Pipelines
(Limit State design)”, September 2015.
of submarine pipeline systems. • ASME B31.G: “Manual for Determining the Remaining Strength of Corroded Pipelines”, 2012.
• ASME B31.8: “Gas Transmission and Distribution Piping Systems”, 2016
• ASME B31.4: “Pipeline Transportation Systems for Liquids and Slurries,” 2016
• Agrell, C. and Collberg, L.:” What the ridiculously small failure probability targets really are”, Offshore
DNVGL-ST-F101 clearly states that the industry has Pipeline Technology (OPT) Conference, 2017, IBC Energy
• Bai, Y et al: “Tube Collapse under Combined Pressure, Tension and Bending Loads”, IJOPE, Vol. 3
performed quite a bit of research on the fabrication No. 2, 1993.
• Bai, Y et al: “Collapse of Thick Tubes Under Pressure, Tension, Bending and Their Combination”,
factor αfab applied to the yield stress. This has resulted Proceeding of The Second International Offshore and polar Engineering Conference, 1982, pp
568-576.
in modified manufacturing techniques that can increase • Bredenbruch K., Gehrmann R., Schmidt T., C: “Strength de-rating of pipelines steels at elevated
temperature” “3R International” 2006.
this factor towards 1.0, as discussed by Aamlid et al. • Collberg Leif, Mork K.J and Marley M.J.: “Inherent Safety Level in Different Pressure Containment
Criteria”, International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Stavanger, Norway, June 2001.
(2011). By formulating criteria as close as possible to • DNV Classification Note no. 30.6 “Structural reliability analysis of marine structures”.
• DNV’96 Rules for submarine pipeline systems, 1996.
the physical response, the industry often picks up this • DNVGL-ST-F101, “Submarine Pipeline System”, 2017.
• DNVGL-RP-F101, “Corroded Pipelines”, May 2017
challenge and brings the development further. • DNVGL-RP-F115, Pre-commissioning of submarine pipelines, September 2016.
• DNVGL-RP-F110 “Global buckling of submarine pipeline design” 2017
• Erica Marley, Olav Aamlid and Leif Collberg: “Assessment of Recent Experimental Data on Collapse
Capacity of UOE Pipeline” IPC 2012, Calgary, Canada.
Finally, the primary message of this paper is not to • ISO 13623: “Petroleum and natural gas industries – Pipeline transportation systems”, 2009.
• Jiao G., Sotberg T., Brushi R., Verley R. and Mork K.: “The SUPERB project: Wall Thickness Design
compare equation by equation and select the minimum Guideline for Pressure Containment of Offshore Pipelines” Proceeding of OMAE’96 Florence, Italy.
• Johns, McConnel: “Pipeline Design Resists Buckling in Deep Water, Oil and Gas Journal, 1984.
required thickness but highlight the different aspects • Kamalarasa, Calladine: “Buckle Propagation in Submarine Pipelines, PAP88, 1988.
• Kiriakides, Yeh, Roach: “On the Determination of the Propagation Pressure of long Circular Tubes”,
to consider. In the end, an optimized ultra-deep water Transactions of ASME, Vol 106, 1984.
• Leif Collberg, K.J Mork and M.J. Marley: “Inherent Safety Level in Different Pressure Containment
pipeline shall consider the totality of all these aspects: Criteria”, International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Stavanger, Norway, June 2001.
• Murphy C. E. and Langner. C. G: “Ultimate Pipe Strength under Bending, Collapse and Fatigue”;
design options, capacities, fabrication, production OMAE’1985.
• NACE SP 0607: Petroleum and Natural Gas Industries - Cathodic Protection of Pipeline Transporta-
testing and quality control. tion Systems - Part 2: Offshore Pipelines, 2007.
• Olav Aamlid, Leif Collberg and Simon Slater: “Collapse Capacity of UOE Deepwater Linepipe”,
OMAE 2011.
• Segen Estefen, Luis D’Angelo and Teresinha Alves: “Correlation between analytical and experimen-
Acknowledgments tal results for propagation buckling”. OMAE’ 1996, Italy.
• Teresinha Alves and Luis D’Angelo.: “Colapso Propagante: Confiabilidade Associada a Determina-
cao da Pressao de Propagacao”, COTEQ 2005, Salvador, Brasil.
The authors would like to thank DNV GL for its support to perform this work. Part of this work was
presented at Rio Pipeline Conference and Exhibition 2017, an IBP (Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels
Institute) event.

Authors
Luis D’Angelo Olav Fyrileiv
DNV GL USA, Inc DNV GL AS, Norway
Principal Engineer Technology Leader
Luis.dangelo@dnvgl.com Olav.fyrileiv@dnvgl.com

Sonia Furtado Leif Collberg

DNV GL USA, Inc DNV GL AS, Norway
Senior Engineer Vice-President
Sonia.furtado@dnvgl.com Leif.collberg@dnvgl.com
 DEEP WATER ILI TOOL DEVELOPMENT
AND 5 YEARS OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Olivier Gillieron, Basil Hostage, Humberto Rodriguez, Dr. Daniel Schaper > Total Exploration & Production, 3P Services

Abstract
The paper describes development of In-Line Inspection (ILI) tools and equipment for deployment in 500+m
water depth offshore oil production pipelines. Various design challenges were posed by the operational condi-
tions and the pipeline operator.

A joint development project is described in which 3P Services and Total E&P define the necessary tool charac-
teristics, development and test program.

These challenges included: high pressure tool body design (considering the resulting limited internal space
available for on board systems), bi-directional inspection operation capability, ability to negotiate flexible
risers without damage to the riser’s internal carcass.

Non tool related developments were also required to prepare a locating device for use in a stuck tool event.

After the successful development, 5 years of operational experience are reviewed summarizing lessons
learned and potential for further development.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 19

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

BACKGROUND JOINT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT BETWEEN

TOTAL E&P AND 3P SERVICES

By definition, Oil and Gas industry call ‘’Deep offshore’’ Objective of a joint project therefore was development
or ‘’Deep water’’ fields all offshore fields producing at of appropriate ILI tools suitable for deep water inspec-
more than 500m water depth. Total E&P operates such tions. The joint project was divided into a conceptual
fields since 2001. phase for specifying the tool characteristics, the tool
design and assembly and an intensive evaluation phase
The first deep offshore field operated by Total E&P was before any inspection was conducted.
Girassol/Jasmin field which was discovered in 1996 and
came on stream in December 2001. It is located off the SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR ILI
coast of Angola, West Africa, in Block 17 about 210 km
northwest of Luanda and at a water depth of 1.350m P ipeline details
(4.430 ft).
Deep water environment implies specific design of
It was the first step in a series of major developments in subsea equipment and specific operating philosophy
Block 17. Other developments that have come on stream which will be described in this paragraph.
following Girassol/Jasmin include Dalia, Rosa, Pazflor,
CLOV, Akpo, Moho-Bilondo, Moho-Nord. A large number of configurations exist:

Ensuring pipeline integrity of such assets is one of the • Looped configuration or single line or hybrid loop
major challenges of Total E&P. In this deep water envi- • Flexible and rigid pipes combination
ronment, inspecting pipelines and making repairs can • Production bundle, Pipe-in-Pipe (PiP) and spools
be extremely difficult and costly. • Specific subsea components: Riser Tower/Flexible/
IPB (Integrated Production Bundle), FLET, SLED, Con-
First of all, inspection techniques typically used for nections, Manifolds, Pig Loop
onshore and topside facilities, such as direct ultrason-
ic mapping/scanning or radiography, were not easily Deep offshore fields are organized in several packages
transposable to deep water, largely due to lack of full which are generally:
“marinization” (modification for marine use and water
depth limitation), safety or costs. Secondly, ROV is the • Subsea production System (SPS) which is composed
only mean of accessing this water depth and of carrying of subsea Xmas trees, well jumpers, subsea manifold,
out underwater inspections (visual inspection, direct and in one case a subsea separator unit.
ultrasonic mapping/scanning, cathodic protection (CP) • Umbilical Flowlines Risers (UFR) which has the function
measurements, etc…). to route the production from the manifold to the topside
or to route injection fluid (water/gas) to injections well
These limitations do not provide operators with suf- heads. The export function (buoy excluded) is also in-
ficiently complete and reliable data to have a good cluded in this package. Riser is part of this package, dif-
visibility of the integrity status of a pipeline, to verify ferent configurations exist: production flexible jumper +
the efficiency of corrosion treatment and to finally make riser tower, flexible riser (Lazy-wave or Lazy-S, Integrat-
decisions on repairs and/or operating conditions. ed Production Bundle (IPB), Steel Catenary Risers (SCR).
• Floating unit package.
Ineffective integrity management may lead to unsched- • Topside packages.
uled production shortfalls and to HSE & regulatory
non-compliance issues. Pipelines, which have the function to route a fluid from
one point to another, are part of the UFR package. They
In-Line Inspection (ILI) is usually used for onshore and are typically flowlines (from subsea manifold to topside
conventional offshore pipelines because it provides the or reverse) or export lines in deep water fields within
best complete set of inspection data of a rigid pipeline. Total E&P:

Detection and sizing performance of ILI tools, Geom- • Total pipeline length: more than 900km
etry and Metal Loss, on the current market were not • Various diameters from 8 inches to 24 inches
fully compatible for this operation in such environment. • Pipeline material: API 5L X65 and X70
Enhanced ILI was finally considered by Total E&P as the • Pipeline function: oil/gas production, water injection,
most realistic solution. gas injection, oil/gas export
• Pipeline not always equipped with pig launcher/receiver
• Constant pipeline ID
20 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

All those specific configurations and equipment make • Full operational capability in the high pressure envi-
operation of deep offshore fields particular, especial- ronment of the deep water lines (maximum MOP of
ly for pipeline inspection by comparison to standard 190 bar and higher)
offshore pipelines. Pipeline cleaning is also a significant • Stainless steel inner carcass of flexible sections
issue; if operational pigging can be regularly carried out shall not be damaged by tools, either cleaning or in-
for production loops or hybrid loop (with dead oil), it is a spection tools. Therefore any metal to metal contact
special operation for single (un-looped) lines. must be prevented by tool design and use of appro-
priate material:
T ool characteristics - - Metallic brushes shall not be used for magnetiza-
tion or cleaning. Synthetic brushes can be used.
ILI operation is considered as a success when the two - - Magnets shall not be in contact with inner sur-
following objectives are met: face (standoff design)
• Capable to pass a large number of elbows up to
• Safe pigging operations: the pipeline is pigged in about 100 and partly in back to back combination
a safe manner, without blocking pigs and without • Capable to pass minimum bend radius of 5D
compromising its integrity. • Vibration and shock resistance of all components
• Efficient pigging operations: pigs are sent through • All electrical equipment must be rated for the haz-
the pipeline with specific objectives, thus, pig runs ardous area in which it is located (and be suitable to
shall ensure reliable results. ATEX Gas Group IIA, Temperature Class T3)
• Measurement of internal pipeline diameter even in
Design of subsea equipment and specific operating phi- flexible sections
losophy oblige ILI tool enhancements, developments and • Measurement capability for heavy wall
adaptations. They had to fulfill the following requirements:

Figure 1: MFL tool design

Figure 2: GEO tool with transmitter

 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 21

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

E mergency backup

In addition to the technical requirements listed above, reduction or bend position. The GEO tool is typically the
requirements to mitigate the risk of pig lodging (proba- next tool after a PROFILE tool as it has a smaller mini-
bility or consequence) were introduced by Total E&P: mal diameter compared to a MFL tool. The measurement
of the internal diameter is performed with electromag-
• All pigs shall be able to run in reverse direction netic sensors located on arms measuring the distance of
(bi-directional tools) the body to the pipe wall. By using two opposite located
• All pigs shall be fitted with tracking device(s) suit- arms the internal diameter can be determined.
able for locating a pig lodged in the pipeline and for
verifying pig position within the pig launcher and The MFL tool is used to measure internal or external
receiver. It shall work on all pipelines designs and metal loss by measurement of a magnetic flux leakage
configurations (through all types of coatings and of any metal loss position. In order to create a magnetic
thermal insulation, etc…) flux leakage the pipe has to be magnetized up to satu-
ration level [1] [2]. For this reason the tool is equipped
A subsea pig location device to be deployed by ROV with permanent magnets and a relative massive body
shall be developed. is needed. Therefore this tool is the last in the line of
inspection tools used.
TOOL DEVELOPMENT
As mentioned above, the complete set of tools was
The initial tool development and evaluation described in designed according to the agreed criteria. Figure 1 shows
this paper was focused on a set of 8” tools. Same mech- a sketch of the MFL tool design. The parts in green are
anisms were applied afterwards to tools for other sizes critical metal parts, which might get in contact to the
from 8” to 24”. pipe wall in a worst case scenario. Special focus was
therefore made in these areas of the tool design.
T ool design
T ool assembly
In order to inspect the targeted pipelines a set of dif-
ferent tools was proposed to cover all measurement Figures 1 and 2 show an assembled 8” Geo and MFL
requirements and to ensure the passage capabilities of tools configured for Bi-directional operations. The
the tools by a successive approach. As typically used the tools fulfill all requirements listed in the chapter above.
set of tools contains a PROFILE tool with cleaning capa- The measurement range of the GEO is from 160 mm
bilities, a GEO tool and a MFL tool. The PROFILE tools to 220mm diameter. The final measurement unit also
with cleaning capabilities can be used to clean the pipe- carries three discs of DMR sensors. Data from the GEO
line on the one hand and to check the minimal pipeline tool can be aligned with data from the MFL tool after the
diameter on the other hand. The tool has a minimal hard inspection runs. The DMR sensor data will be used to-
diameter and is equipped with several gauge plates. Any gether with the MFL sensor data, to discriminate internal
defect of the gauge plate needs to be evaluated and is from external metal loss defects.
used to make the decision whether the next tool having
a bigger minimal diameter can be used. For cleaning The MFL modules were designed, such that no metallic
purpose the PROFILE and cleaning tool is equipped with components of surfaces of the MFL tool will make con-
several magnets collecting any metal debris in the line. tact with the internal surface of the pipeline, specifically
with the internal surface of the flexible sections. Other
The GEO tool proposed for the targeted pipelines is used parts like odometer wheels typically made of metal were
to measure the internal pipeline diameter and allows assembled in Polyamide or alternative materials.
to give a statement about the position of any pipeline

Figure 3: MFL tool with transmitter

22 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

TOOL EVALUATION

A joint final acceptance test session was performed at geted pipeline “worst case” bend radius of 15 degree. In
3P Services’ facility in Lingen in order to evaluate the order to detect any potential metal to metal contact the
tools and demonstrate the performance. On the one tools were prepared with tape on the critical parts that
hand a pull test through a flexible section was performed had potential to touch the inner wall. Any metal to metal
and on the other hand the tool performance was evaluat- contact would harm the tape and could therefore be
ed by pump tests. immediate recognized.

P ull test through flexible section Condition of the flexible was checked by a video in-
spection before and after the pull through test in order
The objectives of the pull test through a flexible were: to ensure no internal damage occurred by the targeted
inspection tools.
• Demonstrate no damage of the flexible section by
any of the tools T est execution
• Demonstrate no metal to metal contact by the tools
• Determine pulling force/Δp for the tools The tools were pulled through the flexible raiser. Figure
4 shows the MFL tool positioned in the launcher. The
The MFL tool, compared to the GEO and the PROFILE/ MFL tool was pulled by a hydraulic winch with a synthet-
cleaning tools, is the most critical for any potential dam- ic rope through the flexible. The rope of the winch was
age or contact to the inner surface of the flexible. This guided by a centering unit. The force required to pull
is because of the heavy magnet yoke, having the largest the tool was 5687 N. This corresponds to a pressure Δp
diameter compared to any other module or component of 1.28 bars for a pipe with diameter 237.6mm. The tool
on any of the tools. speed was 0.5 m/sec. Following figure shows the MFL
tool before and after the pull through tests.
T est setup
T est results
The flexible pipe allocated from NOV weighs approx.
1.6 tons and was fixed in a test position having a 14.3 Tool and flexible were evaluated in detail after the pull
degree bend angle (Figure 4), which simulated the tar- through test. A video inspection of the flexible showed

Figure 4: Flexible for pull test (left) / Non-metal tray as launcher (right)

Figure 5: Screenshot of flexible (left) and undamaged masking tape (right) after pull test
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 23

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

no damage. Figure 5 shows a screenshot of the camera

inspection and photo of the MFL measurement module
after being pulled through the flexible.

The pull test proved that no metal to metal contact be-

tween tool and pipe occurred in the flexible. It could be
shown that neither tool nor flexible was damaged within
the pull test.

P ump test

The goal of the pump test was to evaluate and prove

Figure 6: Sketch of the Pump test setup
following points: with 4.5D bend back to back combination

• Tool bend passage capability / endurance test P ump test execution

• Run characteristics like Δp to move the tools / blow
over pressure of discs All tools planned for the inspection were pumped through
• Detection and sizing performance / limits of mea- the test loop. The most critical tool, the MFL tool was
surement capability pumped through 12 times. A 4.5D bend present in the tar-
• Magnetization level of the MFL tool geted pipelines was therefore passed 48 times. The veloc-
• Repeatability of the results ity of the tool was in the range of 0.45 m/s to 0.9m/s. The
MFL tool measured a magnetization level of 14 kA/m for
P ump test setup a wall thickness of 14.2 mm. The Δp to move the tools was
measured between 2.5 and 3 bar. A blow over pressure
The test facility (Figure 6) build at 3P Services has a test to slip the disc in order to change the direction was
total length of approx. 27 meters (wall thickness 14.2mm) performed and a pressure of 4.7 bars determined.
including:
P ump test results
• Straight pipe with and without artificial defects in
the range 10 to 80 % depth All tools were in a good shape after the pump tests. The
• 4.5D bends combined PROFILE and cleaning tool showed no defects
• Two 90°bends in back-to-back-configuration on the gauge plates. The magnets of the tool collected a
small amount of ferromagnetic material. All discs of all
A centrifugal pump with a maximum of 16 bars and 30 tools showed only small abrasion effects. No damage
m³/h was used. Several pig locators were used to detect could be detected by any part of the GEO or MFL tool.
passage and arrival of the pig, which were placed at the
ends and in the middle of the pipe. The GEO tool showed good results. The bends and the
difference in diameter of different pipes due to fabri-
Test loop pressure was measured at the launcher and cation tolerances were clearly detected. All artificial
the top side of the test facility to demonstrate the Δp defects except two in the straight pipe were detected by
across the tool. the MFL tool. Only the smallest defects having a diame-
ter of 7mm and depth of 10 and 30% were not detected.

Figure 7: PROFILE tool (left), GEO tool (middle) and MFL (right) after pump test
24 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

“
A joint development project proved to be
the right way to get appropriate inspection
results and to ensure a safe operation.
Olivier Gillieron

INSPECTION EXPERIENCES

I nspection execution

As for any ILI operation, the preparation phase is a key

phase. If inspection objectives have been clearly set and
communicated and engineering phase have been made
(tool design, development and evaluation), others tasks
must also be completed prior to execution.

They are typically (but not limited to): definition of the

task matrix, preparation of operation planning, prepa-
ration of operating and communication procedures,
preparation of contingency plans, safety, verification of
pipeline operating conditions, logistic, etc…

The operational pigging sequence was also defined in

an early stage. It has driven tool design as described in
section “Tool design” It follows an iterative process:

• The PROFILE tool which has the objectives to make

the final cleaning and to check the minimal pipeline
Figure 8: Vertical launching of PROFILE tool diameter (VS minimal diameter of the next tool),
• The GEO tool’s objectives are to measure the internal
The tools showed excellent repeatability. There was no pipeline diameter and to give a statement about the
difference in the good quality of data in the end of the position of any pipeline reduction or bend position
test compared to the data collected directly after starting • The MFL tool which has the objectives to detect and
the tool. After completion of the evaluation phase, the to size internal and external metal loss
tools were mobilized.

Figure 9: Sketches representing the production loop configuration of the case study
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 25

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

This operational sequence has been used on Total E&P I nspection results and lessons learned
deep offshore pipelines until now and remains the stan-
dard sequence today. More than 12 pipelines have been inspected by ILI from
2012. They have been beneficial for many aspects.
More than 12 pipelines have been inspected by ILI until
now, not without difficulty. Issues can be divided into We propose to present a case study which is represen-
two classes: tative of the added value of ILI. It corresponds to the
first ILI of a production loop which the following
• Operational issues: accumulation of debris and/or characteristics:
deposit (sand, hard deposit, etc…) can be detrimen-
tal to ILI performances, and can even be catastroph- • 12” production loop
ic. Cleaning pig must be enough efficient to remove • Riser comprised of flexible riser, IPB (Integrated Pro-
those debris but the most important aspect is its duction Bundle) technology
capacity to push debris up through the 500+m riser. • Material of rigid sections: API 5L X65
Some metallic debris coming from broken choke • Pipe type of rigid sections: PiP with seamless
valve internal valves have been also encountered. inner pipe
• Tool related issues: the same kind of difficulties as • Overall length of about 14km
standard pipelines has been encountered in the first • Nominal Wall Thickness (NWT) of rigid sections:
runs, with the difference that pigs have to support 17.5mm
more constraining conditions. They are mechanical • Maximum Operating Pressure (MOP) of more than
damages (PU wheels damage for example), ILI tools 300 bar
damage (sensor damage, electronic malfunction)
and ILI data quality degradation / data loss. Techni- Same pig sequence as presented in section “Inspection
cal improvements have been made to address execution” was followed. Even if cleaning issues were
those constraints. encountered, GEO tool and MFL tool data quality (veloci-
ty, magnetization for MFL) was not questionable.

The next Editions of ptj:

Pipeline Safety
in Germany
Material Deadline: 12th October
Updated and Extended Issue
Published as German and English Edition

Planning &
Construction
Material Deadline: 31st October
26 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

As shown in Figure 10, a large number of indications CONCLUSION

were reported, several internal metal loss features were
identified with high depth, the most critical features As stated above, ILI provides the best complete set of
being located in spools or bends. inspection data of a rigid pipeline because it covers
almost the full length and circumference of the line. ILI
Several investigations were launched in order to directly tools now used as standard are Geometry and Metal
or indirectly cross-check ILI results: Loss (MFL and UT) inspection tools with the objectives
• Flooded Member Detection (FMD) on PiP sections to to detect and to size internal and external metal loss.
check whether flooded or not
• Non-intrusive electromagnetic based technique for The development of ILI tools for deep water pipelines
verifying corrosion on spools and their application in the last 5 years allow Total E&P
• And finally, due to the severity of ILI results and to to achieve their integrity objectives, i.e. to give good visi-
uncertainties on the above investigations results, it bility to the integrity status of the pipelines, to verify the
was decided to change two spools from which a sec- efficiency of corrosion prevention actions and to make
tion was recovered for verification 3D laser scanning decisions on repairs and/or operating conditions.
• .
Figure 11 shows pictures of recovered spool and 3D scan The joint development project proved to be the right way
image. Based on those results, main conclusions and to get appropriate ILI tools covering all aspects attached
way forward are: to a deep sea inspection and to ensure a safe operation
without damage to the pipeline.
• ID/OD discrimination sensors have allowed the de-
tection and sizing on bends 3P Services and Total E&P continue to gain valuable
• Depth sizing is acceptable, but actual length/width experience in deep water environment, leading to further
are higher than reported by ILI tool and operational improvements. Unanticipated is-
• ILI results combined with 3D scanning allows to con- sues have arisen and been successfully addressed.
firm the corrosion mechanism of this production loop
• Corrosion prevention actions shall be strongly rein- New challenges also beckon: single line/tie-in, ILI in
forced: inhibition, enhanced pipeline cleaning. high WT and multi-phase conditions, investigation and

Figure 10: Example of ILI results: metal loss distribution along a production loop
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 27

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Figure 11: Examples of investigations done after ILI operation

verification of ILI findings in deep water environment,

References
pipeline repair (EPRS) among other. Finally, the authors
wish to express their gratitude to Total E&P Angola and [1] “Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) Technology For Natural Gas Pipelines Inspection“, J.B. Nestlero-
th, T.A. Bubenik, 1999, National Technical Information Center
TUC Nigeria-DWD affiliates, who are the primary initia- [2] “Handbuch Molchtechnik”, B. Skerra, 2000, Vulkan-Verlag

tors of these developments.

Authors

Olivier Gillieron Humberto Rodriguez

Total Exploration & Production, Total Exploration & Production,
France Angola
NDT/Inspection Specialist Head of Inspection
olivier.gillieron@total.com humberto.rodriguez@total.com

Basil Hostage Dr. Daniel Schaper

3P Services, Germany 3P Services, Germany
Head of Business Development Head of Research and
hostage@3p-services.com Development
schaper@3p-services.com
 CHALLENGES OF A LARGE OFFSHORE PROJECT
FROM A LINE PIPE MANUFACTURERS VIEW

Christian Kassel, Dr. Andreas Liessem; Trond Gjedrem > EUROPIPE; Nord Stream 2 AG

Abstract
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will transport natural gas into the European Union (EU) to enhance the security of
supply, support climate goals and strengthen the internal energy market. Running through the Baltic Sea, Nord
Stream 2 will deliver natural gas directly from some of the world’s largest known reserves in Russia to the neigh-
bouring EU gas market. The pipeline route starts in Narva Bay (Russia) and travels to a planned landfall close to
Lubmin (Germany). Construction of the pipeline is scheduled to commence in 2018, before the pipeline system is
commissioned in late 2019.

EUROPIPE was contracted to deliver 1101,5 km of 48 in. dia. line pipe with a wall thickness of 26.8 mm, and 20
km of 48 in. dia. line pipe with a wall thickness of 34.6 mm, including a three layer polyethylene anti-corrosion
coating. Along with the delivery of line pipe, EUROPIPE received an order for the production of 95 buckle arres-
tors and transition pieces with a wall thickness of 34.6 mm, as well as the induction bends for the landfalls in
Germany and Russia.

This paper will outline the challenges that EUROPIPE has faced when manufacturing pipe for use on the Nord
Stream 2 project maintaining the tough time schedule and stringent quality requirements.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 29

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

This paper shows the challenges a line pipe manufacturer cluding fracture arrest properties (Suffix F), enhanced
is faced with on the example of the Nord Stream 2 Project dimensional requirements (Suffix D), and requirements
for higher utilisation (Suffix U) for pipes with a wall
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will transport natural gas thickness of 26.8 mm.
into the European Union (EU) to enhance the security
of supply, support climate goals and strengthen the The new Nord Stream 2 pipelines will generally follow
internal energy market. Running through the Baltic Sea, the same route as the two existing Nord Stream pipe-
Nord Stream 2 will deliver natural gas directly from some lines, however the first 100 km of the route through Rus-
of the world’s largest known reserves in Russia to the sian waters is different, see Figure 1. The maximum water
neighbouring EU gas market. Figure 1 shows the pipeline depth along the route is approximately 220 m.
route, which starts in Narva Bay (Russia) and runs to a
planned landfall close to Lubmin (Germany). Construc- With a consistent inner diameter (ID) of 1153 mm, Nord
tion of the pipeline is scheduled to commence in 2018, Stream 2 has been designed with three different design
before the pipeline system is commissioned in late 2019. pressures, 220 bar, 200 bar and 177.5 bar, which corre-
spond to steel wall thicknesses of 34.6 mm, 30.9 mm
The two strands, each 1227 km long, 48 in. dia. pipeline and 26.8 mm, respectively. While the most southern
making up Nord Stream 2 have wall thicknesses rang- section of the pipeline will have a wall thickness of 26.8
ing from 26.8 mm - 41 mm. The pipelines have been mm, the most northern section will have a wall thickness
designed to meet the requirements of the DNV-OS-F101 of 34.6 mm. The mid-section will have a wall thickness of
pipeline design code and the steel pipe materials will, 30.9 mm. For the landfalls line pipe with a wall thickness
therefore, meet the DNV offshore standard F101, in- of 41 mm are used. This design means that the steel

Figure 1: Pipeline Route

30 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

weight of the pipe ranges between 780 – 1010 kg/m, mill of EUROPIPE and coated at MÜLHEIM PIPECOAT-
amounting to a total steel consumption for one line of INGS (MPC). Along with the delivery of line pipe, EURO-
approximately 1.1 million t (Table 1). PIPE received an order for the production of 95 buckle
arrestors and 8 transition pieces with a wall thickness of
34.6 mm, as well as 62 induction bends for the landfalls
Total Length of one pipeline ~1,200 km in Germany and Russia. Europipe plans to manufacture
its share of Nord Stream 2 pipes with lots per month of
Diameter Const. I.D. 1,153 mm up to 90 km. Several factors must be considered and
solved when working as part of a project of this scale.
Wall Thickness 26.8/30.9/34.6/41 mm This article will outline the challenges that EUROPIPE
has faced when manufacturing pipe for use on the Nord
Stream 2 project. When combined, these considerations
Weight 780 – 1010 kg/m
entail a tough project, particularly with demanding time
55 bcm/a (27.5 bcm/a constraints and high quality requirements.
Capacity
per line)
CHALLENGES
Planned start of gas deliveries End 2019
M anufacturing procedure qualification tests
Maximum pressure 220 bar
After being awarded the contract, but prior to the start
of mass production, a comprehensive qualification
Table 1: Nord Stream 2 Technical Data program, or manufacturing procedure qualification test
(MPQT) had to be performed in the plate mills, pipe mill
Before the tender for pipes was issued, the Nord Stream and coating yard.
2 project executed a comprehensive and internation-
al prequalification program. Interested pipe suppliers The purpose of a MPQT is to fine-tune the manufacturing
who could not prove that they had produced pipes process and test all parameters to assure that the mass
according to the Nord Stream specification recently, but production is stable and consistent. Due to the tough
were regarded to have the capability to manage such a time schedule of the project, the qualification program
challenging job, were invited to prequalify through a trial had to be performed in a relatively short time.
production. During this trial production, the pipe suppli-
ers were required to produce 20 pipes, all without any The scope of the MPQT for the Nord Stream 2 project in-
defects nor rejections. Only pipe suppliers who managed cluded the manufacture of 20 pipes per steel plate route
this hurdle would be prequalified to participate in the and intensive testing of the mechanical properties. An
tender. This tender was amongst the largest ever in the equivalent qualification program also had to be conduct-
pipeline industry, covering a total supply of 2.2 million ed for the buckle arrestors and induction bends.
tons of high quality offshore steel pipe.
L ine pipe
A number of pipe suppliers in Asia, Europe and Amer-
ica participated in the program, with most companies The line pipe material supplied for the Nord Stream
completing it successfully. The tender was consequently 2 project has to be produced in accordance with the
issued to seven prequalified bidders in August 2015, project’s specification, which is based on DNV’s offshore
before the supply was awarded to three successful pipe standard, DNV-OS-F101. For most of the EUROPIPE
suppliers – Russia’s Chelpipe and OMK and Germany’s delivery, the SAWL 485 FDU material grade is required.
EUROPIPE GmbH (EUROPIPE) – in March 2016. The de- In order to fulfil the requirements of the Nord Stream 2
cision to award the contract to three suppliers was made project in terms of nondestructive testing and geometry,
by Nord Stream 2 due to the high quantities that needed as well as the combination of large diameter, heavy wall
to be supplied for the project within a relatively short pe- and constant ID, the processes of plate and pipe manu-
riod of time (2500 km over a 22 month period, equating facture needs a high degree of robustness.
to over 110 km per month).
Furthermore, the production of such line pipe material
EUROPIPE was contracted to deliver 1101,5 km of 48 in. takes place in the area of conflict of several dissimilar
dia. line pipe with a wall thickness of 26.8 mm, and 20 properties, including weldability, toughness, strength
km of 48 in. dia. line pipe with a wall thickness of 34.6 and deformability, weld seam and heat affected zone
mm, including a three layer polyethylene anti-corrosion (HAZ) toughness, corrosion resistance, and pipe geome-
coating. The company’s pipes are produced in the UOE try. While dissimilar, these properties interact.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 31

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

For the weldability of pipes,

engineers ask for low
carbon equivalents (CE).
However, they also require
high strength and a low
yield to tensile ratio. The
toughness requirements,
Charpy V-notch toughness
(CVN; 50 J at -20°C) and
drop weight tear (DWT; 85 %
shear area at -10°C), inter-
act strongly. Low carbon
steels exhibit excellent
CVN toughness with limited
DWT shear area ratios. HAZ
toughness may be achieved
by expensive alloying
approaches, yet, these are
quite often in conflict with
the DWT properties and
low CE. An additional re-
quirement for pipes with a Figure 3: Out of Roundness Pipe Ends
wall thickness of 26.8 mm
is the supplementary requirement ‘U’ in accordance The results to date are in a range of 5 - 10 MPa,
with DNV-OS-F101. For the Nord Stream 2 project, a which shows that the Suffix U requirement is safely
control mechanism for Suffix U (a so-called ‘comfort met (Figure 2).
zone’) was introduced.
Geometrical requirements also need to be met for the
Reported on a weekly basis, the comfort zone is calcu- Nord Stream 2 project. Based on the positive results
lated as follows: obtained during construction of Nord Stream in 2010 -
2012, a stringent out-of-roundness (OoR) requirement
Comfort zone = average yield strength - 2 x standard was specified by Nord Stream 2. OoR needs to be kept
deviation - specified minimum yield strength within very tight limits to assure that no time is lost for
pipe fit-up prior to offshore
welding during construction.
OoR of the pipe ends was
specified to a maximum of
5.0 mm but with the addi-
tional limitation that at least
50% of the pipe ends should
show an OoR of 3.0 mm or
less. Pipe suppliers were
required to measure these
values with automatic high
resolution laser systems or
similar, which have an ac-
curacy of approximately 0.2
mm. They are significantly
more reliable than manual
measurements. Measuring
OoR manually is not regard-
ed sufficiently accurate. Due
to the investments that EU-
ROPIPE has recently made,
this challenge can also be
Figure 2: SR “U”, Comfort Zone
fulfilled safely (Figure 3).
32 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

in the range of -10°C to

+40°C. However, during pipe
transport and storage prior
to installation, lower tem-
peratures of down to -40°C
can occur.

A three layer high densi-

ty polyethylene coating
(HDPE) was selected for the
Nord Stream 2 project. This
coating is characterised
by high mechanical resis-
tance in terms of impact
and hardness, suitability at
low temperatures in terms
of impact, high flexibility,
UV and heat resistance, as
well as effective adhesion
to steel. It has low water
Figure 4: Structure of 3-Layer HDPE Coating
absorption, a high electric
resistivity and forms a good
Since a low OoR is regarded as a prerequisite to allow barrier against corrosive media. Figure 4 shows the
for fast offshore welding, it is therefore an important basic structure of the coating system.
factor for meeting an overall project schedule. All param-
eters from the running production are stable and safely The minimum total coating thickness is 4.2 mm (FBE
within the Nord Stream 2 specification requirements. primer minimum 150 μm). To enhance adhesion to the
concrete weight coating, the top coat was designed with
C oating sintered PE powder applied on top of the PE layer, the
so-called ‘rough coat.’ The 3LPE coating is applied in line
Offshore pipeline conditions can often be considered with the ISO21809-1 rev. 10-2011 as a governing standard
extreme and pipelines require effective long term protec- as well as the specification of Nord Stream 2. For girth
tion against corrosion attack from seawater and aggres- welding and non-destructive girth weld testing the cut
sive chemical and microbiological agents on the seabed back at the pipe ends was fixed to 240 mm ±10 mm for
(soil). In-service conditions require a design temperature PE free and 190 mm ±10mm for the bare steel (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Definition of Cut Back

 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 33

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

The tapering angle of the coating is less than 20°. The ing application, the coating line was upgraded for the
pipe ends remain unprotected, no varnish is applied, as project. This allowed MPC to coat up to 500 pipes per
the comparison of pipe ends with and without varnish day internally and externally in a three shift operation.
showed no significant difference after nine months of
storage outside in seaside proximity. It was found that BUCKLE ARRESTORS AND TRANSITION PIECES
a uniform dense layer of oxides has formed on the pipe
ends without varnish. It is expected that the pipes will In order to avoid buckling during the laying process
be stored less than three years from manufacture until buckle arrestors every 920 m have to be included during
they are installed. pipe lay. For the NSP2 project buckle arrestors (BA) and
transition pieces (TP) in a one-piece construction are
To improve flow conditions during gas transport, an used. EUROPIPES scope of supply are 95 BAs and 8 TPs
epoxy flow coat with a very smooth surface is internally with a wall thickness of 34.6 mm.
applied. Beside its primary task of reducing hydraulic fric-
tion, it also has a function as temporary corrosion protec- These parts were taken from the routine production and
tion during pipe transport, storage and installation. For machined on both ends to a wall thickness of 26.8 mm.
this lining, the governing standard is API RP 5L2 and the The TPs are machined on one side only to a wall thick-
Nord Stream 2 specification. The minimum required dry ness of 31.9 mm. Challenging requirements on the BA
thickness of the internal coating is 90 μm. The cut back and TP ends were the tight wall thickness range, the Out
length for the lining was defined to 50 mm -0/+10 mm. of Roundness of max. 3 mm and the surface condition of
the machined end which was specified with a roughness
The roughness of the finished coating is specified to be of Ra ≤ 12.5 μm.
Rz ≤4 μm (individual readings) and in average it shall
not exceed 3 μm. Only flow coat materials with a high INDUCTION BENDS
solid content were qualified for the project because it
provides lower roughness of the finished epoxy flow For the construction of the landfalls in Russia and
coat and has a reduced fraction of volatile organic Germany induction bends with ID 1.153 x WT 43,0 mm,
compounds that is beneficial for HSE-aspects. Figure 6 ID 904,6 x WT 35,5 mm and ID 645,0 x WT 33,5 mm are
shows the actual roughness of internally coated pipes needed. The material grade is L485 corresponding to
based on 22 785 measurements, the average coating the line pipe material grade. Due to the low temperature
roughness value is actually Rz <2 μm. requirement, the bends have to fulfill the toughness re-
quirement at a test temperature of -48 °C, the bends are
The tight time schedule of the project was a tough chal- delivered in the quenched and tempered condition. In
lenge. To increase the production rate while ensuring the order to maintain a smooth gas flow the induction bends
required cleanliness of the pipe surface prior to the coat- are internally coated.

LOGISTICS

In order to maintain the am-

bitious time schedule of the
Nord Stream 2 project, a very
tight delivery schedule was
implemented. For transport
in Germany, from Mülheim to
Mukran, trains are the most
suitable medium. So-called
‘supertrains’ with 148 pipes
on 37 railcars were used
by EUROPIPE for transport
in Germany. The delivery
of pipes from Mülheim to
Mukran started on 25 Oc-
tober 2016. Since this date,
each week, an average of 15
km of pipes (or approximate-
ly 1250 pipes) have been
Figure 6: Roughness Rz of coated internal pipe surface
transported to the storage
34 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

yard. The maximum quantity that sometimes needs to market of large diameter pipe and is able to handle large
be shipped is close to 2100 pipes per week. The small projects. Approximately 45% of Nord Stream 2’s pipe
quantity of pipe with a wall thickness of 34.6 mm will be quantities have been awarded the company.
shipped to Kotka (Finland), after being transported by
train to the port of Bremen from where the pipe will be The Nord Stream 2 pipeline project shows how com-
transported via vessel to Kotka. panies can overcome both technical and logistical
challenges. Due to the significance of the project, the
PIPE TRACKING SYSTEM (PTS) technical requirements and consistent quality of the
steel pipes are of paramount importance. This applies
All production data, beginning from steel casting up to to mechanical properties, geometrical tolerances and
the finished product, have to be imported to the PTS to the extent of pipe testing during manufacturing. To
maintained by NSP2. In addition to the production data, produce the pipes in accordance with the DNV offshore
the results of the mechanical testing, chemical analy- standard and the Nord Stream 2 project specification, a
sis and geometrical checks are to be transferred to the high degree of process robustness has been necessary
PTS. This allows an excellent traceability for the project but challenging. The logistics chain of pipes from EURO-
and fulfills the needs for the pipe integrity management PIPE will include train transport in Germany and vessel
later on. For the line pipe mass production the existing shipment to Finland. At the end of the order, nearly 91
data infrastructure was adapted, so that the data could 000 pipes will have been transported by EUROPIPE to
be send automatically to the pipe tracking system. The the final destinations in total.
experience made during recent projects could be used
for this project, but, as the PTS requirements vary from
project to project, Europipe would encourage an industry Authors
standardization of PTS requirements.
Christian Kassel
For a mass production the data to be reported could EUROPIPE GmbH
be extracted from the EUROPIPE in-house Production
Senior Manager Technical
Information System (PRODIS). However for the small
scale production of the other products like BAs, TPs and Management – Inquiries
induction bends the feeding of the PTS is done manually
christian.kassel@europipe.com
via uploading the relevant data.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

This large project could not be processed like a rou-

tine order. In order to manage this extensive project a Dr. Andreas Liessem
specific project management structure had to be build
EUROPIPE GmbH
up in order to ensure that the involved disciplines are
working together project focused. Beneath technical and Managing Director
commercial assignments the document management
andreas.liessem@europipe.com
became very important. Up to now 173 documents are
issued (a.o. 18 ITP, 18 x MPS, 27 Reports (e.g. MPQT), 17
Procedures, …). All these documents had to be followed
up from issuing the first revision up to the final approval
which had to be achieved in due time in order to main-
tain the tough time schedule.. This process had to be
strongly managed as several companies (NSP2, DNV GL,
GLIS) were involved in the approval process.
Trond Gjedrem
Nord Stream 2 AG
CONCLUSIONS
Engineering Manager
The extension of the existing Nord Stream pipeline trond.gjedrem@nord-stream.com
system with another two pipelines of 1227 km in length
is one of the largest and most important infrastructure
projects for western European gas supply. Nord Stream
2 will transport up to 55 billion m3 of natural gas into the
EU annually. EUROPIPE has a significant share in the
 14TH PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
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 NOVEL COST-EFFECTIVE APPROACH LEADING
TO SUCCESSFUL SAFE ISOLATION AND DECOMMISSIONING
OF OFFSHORE SOUR GAS PIPELINES
Pooya Gholami, Hadi Tabassomi, Mahdi Nouri > IPEC, Pipeline and Process Services

Abstract
Safety is a crucial issue in operational activities. When performing a hot work operation on a live pipeline, it is
very important to isolate the pipeline to prevent any dangerous event. In this paper, a newly and innovatively
designed approach has been presented which has been used to isolate a 32” and an 18” offshore and infield
pipelines from sour gas and prepare them for hot work operation in order to substitute a T-piece with a pipe
piece on the line.

The pipelines had been depressurized, but still filled with inflammable sour gas and not ready for hot work
operation. In this designed approach, injection of Nitrogen as inert gas, launching pigs for batching the me-
diums, injecting MEG (Mono Ethylene Glycol) for washing out the remained condensed gas on inner pipe wall
and finally usage of Medium Expansion AFFF foams have been implemented in order to prevent diffusion of
inflammable gases and prepare a safe condition on the pipelines.

The implemented procedure resulted in a well-attained and fully safe condition which had an LEL and H2S
amount of zero. The hot work operation, which included cutting a T-piece and welding a pipe piece instead,
was performed safely and completed successfully.

This remarkable result in safe isolation of pipelines by using the implemented method was practically
achieved with not a considerably high cost and a very low required time for preparation of equipment.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 37

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

“
Isolation of pipelines and pipework systems is a key re- When performing a pipeline isolation
quirement for the maintenance and safe modification of operation, planning is the key feature towards
oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure. As the aspect excellent performance of the job.
of safety, it is important to isolate the gas containing Pooya Gholami
pipelines before performing any hot work operation
on the pipeline. The isolation process is also known in
industry as “lock-out / Tag-out” and is used to isolate In addition to that, some other companies add some
machinery and equipment from its energy source, and alterations to this technology in order to enhance its ap-
acts as an alternative to inert purging (depressurizing plication. PLIDCO uses a Shear+Plug method for pipeline
and water filling) and intrusive isolation techniques [1]. isolation [3]. The PLIDCO Shear+Plug is a hybrid tool that
It is important to ensure the isolation of any unsafe ma- uses the power of hydraulics to cleanly shear through the
chinery/equipment from potential uncontrolled energy pipeline and valving mechanism - providing a positive
sources during repair, service or maintenance work. metal-to-metal seal. The Shear+Plug machinery, tools and
process are heavy duty. They are built and installed like
C ommon I solation M ethods and E xperiences any permanent fixture to the pipeline system. The system
features a permanent metal-to-metal line seal that is
Some reputable companies have pre-determined and welded to the pipeline which assures safety and long-
standard approaches towards isolation operations. Chev- term stability of the line isolation. Installing Shear+Plug is
ron Pipeline Company, for instance, presents a standard like assembling a gate valve into the line piece by piece.
to ensure that isolation of hazardous energy and/or open- Because there is no tapping required, no metal shavings
ing of equipment is performed in a safe and controlled can enter the line to cause contamination or damage.
manner [2]. In this document, Chevron has presented the Instead, the hydraulic shear drives the flattened coupon
requirements, instructions, records and all the information into a receptacle below the pipeline - there is no possibil-
required for performing a safe isolation operation. ity of it falling into the line and having to be retrieved. On
the other hand, J. Aleksandersen et al. [4] implement a re-
Henning Bø at T.D. Williamson [1] has discussed differ- motely controlled and operated (umbilical-less) pipeline
ent case studies where non-intrusive inline isolation isolation system for use on oil and gas pipelines in all
tools facilitated offshore decommissioning activities. dimensions. These systems are designed, manufactured,
They provided inline, double block and monitor (DBM) and tested to isolate high pipeline operating pressures.
pipeline isolation services, using two SmartPlug tools to Communication with the tool for typical subsea applica-
isolate the different size pipeline at subsea set locations tion is done from a surface vessel, via acoustic signals to
upstream and downstream of the platform in North Sea a subsea module, then through the pipeline wall via Ex-
and Gulf of Mexico. The tools were tracked and operated tremely Low Frequency (ELF) electromagnetic waves. All
in the pipeline using wireless through-wall Smart Track critical parameters such as pressures and temperatures
communication systems. Upon completion of the tie-in, are monitored. The tool design is fail safe, i.e., as long as
the isolation tools were unset and the entire set up of there is a differential pressure over the isolation system
isolation tools, batching pigs, and welding pigs was it cannot unset. Thus any failure to the control system
pigged to the pipeline terminal onshore and successfully will not jeopardize its operation.
retrieved. The following picture shows the tool which had
been used in different sizes. The importance of an appropriate isolation operation
is so vital that it goes without saying that if a proper
There are multiple companies that also utilize the plug isolation method is not implemented during pipeline re-
technology for pipeline isolation. It means that this meth- pair work, dangerous incidences might occur. As stated
od is well-known and popular technique in this industry. in a case study by Process and Engineering Group [5],

Figure 1: TDW Double independent seal SmartPlug® train with third seal for hydrotesting [1]
38 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

there was a fatal flash fire at one of the crude oil pipe- • Hot Tapping and Plugging
line terminal, during pipeline repair works. The incident Hot Tapping and Plugging can be achieved using
happened during edge preparation i.e. grinding on the the DNV-GL type approved BISEP [6]. This patent
open end (plugged with bentonite clay) of a 42” NB provides fail-safe double block and bleed isolation
pipe. In this case, the isolation of the crude oil header deployed through a single full bore hot tap penetra-
was done by a mud plug using ‘Bentonite Clay’ at the tion, without the need for additional bleed or vent
open end of the 42” pipeline. After mud plugging, the ports. It offers significant safety advantages over
plan was to weld the newly fabricated spool piece after traditional line stop technology, the hydraulically
necessary grinding, edge preparation & fit‐up. But, the activated dual seals provide leak-tight isolation of
incident happened during joint fit‐up operation (grinding live pressurized pipelines.
etc.), for welding of the newly fabricated spool piece with
the open end of existing pipeline. The cause of flash This high integrity isolation is provided by a spheri-
fire incident was due to release of residual hydrocarbon cal dual seal plug which is deployed from a pressure
vapors from the line on account of dislodgment (partly or competent launcher through an isolation valve and
fully) of the Bentonite Plug. rotated towards the flow of pressure to be isolat-
ed. The seals are activated by a hydraulic cylinder
N ew I solation T echnologies inside the plug which compresses the seals, the
resultant radial expansion pushes the seals out
There is a wide range of pipeline isolation techniques against the pipe bore. Further application of hydrau-
some of which are described here. The operators often lic pressure generates a rubber pressure in the seal
need to assess the optimum solution for their pipeline elements which allows the annulus void between
isolation challenges. the seals to be pressure tested. Each seal is inde-
pendently tested with full pipeline pressure in the
The Stats Group [6] presents a couple of techniques for correct direction to verify leak-tight isolation. The
safe isolation of pipeline for hot tapping and other pur- seal annulus void is vented to ambient through the
poses. Some of these methods are described as follows. BISEP™ plugging head to provide a zero-energy
zone and provides constant monitoring capabili-
• Non-Intrusive Inline Isolation ties to prove the seal integrity before and during
The Plug technology provides fail-safe double block maintenance, repair, or modification activities. Line
and bleed isolation of pressurized pipelines while the pressure acting against the tool pressure head
system remains live and at operating pressure. Dual maintains seal pressure creating a fail-safe feature
seals provide a zero-energy zone to enable main- providing actuation independent of the hydraulic
tenance work on pressurized systems to be carried system. The ejection load resistance is provided by
out safely and efficiently. Piggable isolation tools the BISEP™ deployment head. This technology is
require no welding or cutting into live lines, leaving schematically illustrated in figure 3.
no residual fittings or hardware on the pipeline. This
feature ensures pipeline integrity is maintained and • Small Bore Hot Tapping and Plugging
it is always recoverable upon job completion. The The patented BI-STOP™ [6] provides a unique hot
application of this technology includes: Pipeline valve tap and plugging system to address challenges with
replacement / repair, Riser replacement / repair, small-bore pipework that have absent or limited
Mid-line pipeline repair / tie-in, Platform
abandonment and bypass and
Pipeline diversion. This tech-
nology is shown in
figure 2.

Figure 2: Plug technology [6] Figure 3: BISEP technology [6]

 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 39

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

isolation facilities. This cost-effective solution en- enable hot or cold tapping into an existing pipe.
ables small bore pipework to be isolated, cut and if The system components are compatible with a
required, terminated with a full-bore valve whilst the wide range of fluid types and flow conditions and
system remains live. The BI-STOP™ allows main- are designed for ease of installation with minimal
tenance or remediation activities to be carried out disruption to the pipework or system to which they
safely, eliminating the need for a system shutdown. are fitted. Figure 5 demonstrates a schematic and
This technology has been shown in figure 4. operational picture of this clamp.

• Tie-In Clamp PROJECT OVERVIEW

Mechanical Tie-In Clamps facilitate the connection
of new branch pipework to existing infrastructure This paper summarizes the approaches and activities
without the requirement for welding. Tie-In Clamps during a non-intrusive isolation operation in South Pars
are routinely used to provide a flanged off-take to Gas Field platforms.

P urpose of I solation O peration

There is a T-piece installed on the 32” pipeline and a

T-piece installed on the 18” pipeline at platform. These
two T-pieces are connected to each other through an 18”
pipe with two valves in order to create a bypass route
for the gas which connects the two 18” and 32” pipelines
through 18” piping and valves. The drawings of men-
tioned bypass piping and T-pieces are shown in figure 6.

Purpose of the isolation operation under investigation of

this paper is to provide a safe condition for removing the
Figure 4: BI-STOP technology [6]
two mentioned T-pieces and bypass route.

P ipelines D etails
and L ocation

The two pipelines on which

isolation operation has been
performed and presented in
this paper are two offshore
pipelines in South Pars Gas
Field. The pipelines charac-
teristics are summarized
Figure 5: Tie-in clamp [6]
in Table 1.

Figure 6: 32” & 18” pig launcher and 18” bypass pipe (Green: 32” pipeline, Red: 18” pipeline, Purple: 18” bypass line) [14]
40 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Nominal Length Outside Wall Internal Volume D esigned A pproach

Diameter (m) Diameter Thickness Diameter per Meter
(in) (mm) (mm) (mm) (m3)
For the purpose of isolating the pipelines, a pre-designed
32 ” 113458 829.2 28.8 771.6 0.4676 approach was implemented in the field. The details of
18 ” 5000 457 15.9 425.2 0.1420 followed steps are presented as following procedure.

Table 1: Pipelines Characteristics [14] Firstly, the 32” and 18” pipelines were depressurized
and flared from both sides and the 32” onshore side
The 18” pipeline is an infield flow line which transports P/R valve was closed while opening the path toward the
the reservoir fluid produced from satellite platform to flare for venting. Afterwards, the preparation of equip-
the inlet facilities of the main platform. The 32” pipeline ment on platform will be started and the H2S / LEL for
is an export pipeline which is installed to transport the safety of environment will be checked. Then, both 18”
offshore production from main platform to the onshore valves on bypass route will be closed along with closing
plant. Figure 7 shows a schematic diagram of the pipe- of MOV and ESD valves on 32” piping at platform.
lines and platforms and their locations.
The operation will be started by injecting Nitrogen into
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITIES AND PREPARATIONS the launcher and venting to the flare in order to make
safe condition for opening the launcher.
When performing a pipeline isolation operation, planning
is a key feature towards excellent performance of the A 32” Poly Foam Pig will be loaded into 32” launcher
job. Optimum planning calls for the job to be planned in (Pig No.1) and by opening the MOV and ESD valves on
good time, possibly from shore, and for the documents 32” piping at platform and injecting Nitrogen via pig re-
to have been received/quality-assured before work ceiver drain, the pig will be propelled as much as 2500m
begins offshore. Well-defined boundaries must exist for of 32” pipeline. At this time, the MOV and ESD valves on
what are regarded as “normal” work operations, so that 32” piping at platform will be closed and the launcher
the boundaries for what production technicians can do will be vented to the flare for safety. A 32” High Seal-
without an isolation plan are not stretched [7]. ing Low Density Foam Pig will be loaded into the 32”
launcher (Pig No.2) by opening the MOV and ESD valves
In order to precisely perform the operational activities on 32” piping at platform and injecting Nitrogen via
and adhere to safety requirements, it was needed that pig receiver drain, the pig will be propelled as much as
complete preliminary activities including designing the 2500m of 32” pipeline. Then, the MOV and ESD valves
suitable approach, material calculation and equipment on 32” piping at platform will be closed and venting the
preparation be done. launcher to the flare for safety will be done. A 32” Poly

Figure 7: Schematic diagram of the pipelines and platforms and their locations [14]
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 41

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Foam Pig will be loaded into 32” launcher (Pig No.3) and 5km, the second foam pig (Pig No.2) and the 2500m
by opening the MOV and ESD valves on 32” piping at of Nitrogen behind it is omitted from the applicable
platform and injecting Nitrogen via pig receiver drain, approach for this pipeline. The final arrangement of this
the pig will be propelled only to pass the launcher and designed approach is illustrated in figure 8.
valves. Following the launch of Pig No.3, MEG will be
pumped for approximately 40m of 32” pipeline (Purpose After safe removal of T-piece and bypass pipe, a same
of MEG injection is to wash the remained gas conden- size spool will be fitted and welded instead of the
sate and clear the pipe wall). After closing the MOV and dismantled T-piece. Pigs’ recovery will be started with
ESD valves on 32” piping at platform and venting the sour gas pressurization from the satellite platform and
launcher to the flare, another 32” Poly Foam Pig will be onshore refinery.
loaded into 32” launcher (Pig No.4) and by opening the
MOV and ESD valves on 32” piping at platform and in- M aterial C alculation and P roperties
jection of Nitrogen, the Pig No.4 will be propelled only to
pass the riser (almost 100m of pipeline). At this stage, The material used for this isolation operation is com-
expanded AFFF foam will be injected from pig launcher prised of: Pigs, Liquid Nitrogen, MEG and AFFF Medium
(behind the Pig No.4/Mixed with N2). Finally, the outlet Expansion Foam.
of foam from bypass drain will be checked after opening
and checking safe condition in 18” bypass pipeline. The calculations regarding required material along with
the properties of used material are presented in follow-
Once the foam is received in bypass drain and the ing paragraphs.
whole riser and launcher are fully filled with expanded
foam, the pipeline isolation is completed and removing P igs
bypass line can be commenced. Afterwards, cutting
operation on T-piece can be started while keeping a Usage of pigs in this project is for separation of batch-
low flow of Nitrogen inside the pipeline and around es. More than that, it should be considered that the
the cutting area. utilized pigs are required to be light enough, so that
they would not cause problem during pig recovery
The same series of activities will be performed for safe with gas which will be performed after completion of
isolation of 18” pipeline. However, during the opera- isolation and cutting operations. For this reason,
tion on 18” pipeline, flaring from satellite platform will poly coated high density foam pigs were considered
be done continuously to prevent pipeline from being to be used in this project. Figure 9 shows the utilized
pressurized. This is essential due to low length of the pigs in this project.
18” pipeline. Also, since the length of 18” pipeline is only

Figure 8: Final arrangement of designed approach [14]

42 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

These pigs are not only light-weighted, but also are al-
most capable of withstanding the penetration of liquids.
The only different pig used, was the Pig No.2 in 32” pipe-
line which was a special low density foam pig with con-
siderably bigger diameter than pipeline inside diameter
that has been vacuumed and compressed to fit into the
pipeline. Since the 32” pipeline has a high length, and
only a small section of it was going to be under isolation
operation, this special high-sealing pig was added to
the designed approach in order to provide a safer barrier
Figure 9: Left: 32” poly pigs; Right: 18” poly pigs [14]
against penetration of sour gas.

N itrogen Nitrogen Calculations for 18” Pipeline:

For the purpose of constructing a neutralized condition Pipeline Internal Diameter ID  425.2mm
inside the pipeline, Nitrogen is often being used. In this
project, vaporized liquid Nitrogen was considered to Pipeline Cross 
A  ID 2  0.142m 2
perform the job. In order to do so, ISO tanks filled with Section Area 4
liquid Nitrogen are needed to be provided and this liquid
Nitrogen will be vaporized by means of adequate num- Total Nitrogen Mass M LN  1200kg
ber of vaporizers. Number of ISO tanks and vaporizers
depends on the desired flow rate. The required facilities Contingency Factor of
CF = 1.2
for this matter are illustrated in figure 10. Nitrogen Vaporization
Actual Mass of M LN
The calculations which are used for approximately esti- M LN   1000kg
Liquid Nitrogen CF
mating the location of pig inside the pipeline according
to the amount of vaporized and injected Nitrogen are Normal Volume of 22.4L
VN  M LN   800m3
presented as follows [8]. Gaseous Nitrogen @ STP 28 gr
Temperature Conversion 25  273
Nitrogen Calculations for 32” Pipeline: T   1.092
Coefficient 0  273
Pipeline Internal Diameter ID  771.6mm Pressure Conversion 2.5bar
P   2.5
Coefficient 1bar
Pipeline Cross  T
A  ID 2  0.4676m 2 Actual Volume of Va  VN   349.288m3
Section Area 4 Nitrogen P
Total Nitrogen Mass M LN  2000kg Estimated Location Va
L  2459.842m
of the Pig A
Contingency Factor of
CF = 1.2
Nitrogen Vaporization MEG
Actual Mass of M
M LN  LN  1666.667kg Mono Ethylene glycol (MEG) is widely used by the oil
Liquid Nitrogen CF
and gas markets in wellheads and pipelines to prevent
Normal Volume of 22.4L hydrate formation at pipeline conditions. In offshore
VN  M LN   1333.33m3
Gaseous Nitrogen @ STP 28 gr deep water gas production facilities, where the expo-
Temperature Conversion 25  273 sure to lower temperatures in subsea pipelines is com-
T   1.092 mon, MEG is used for hydrate inhibition [9]. Hydrate
Coefficient 0  273
inhibition is achieved by injecting MEG to decrease the
Pressure Conversion 1.2bar hydrate formation temperature below the operating
P   1.2
Coefficient 1bar temperature, thereby preventing hydrate blockage of
Actual Volume of T the pipeline. During the gas production process, the
Va  VN   1212.805m3 lean glycol mixes with the produced water from the
Nitrogen P
formation [10]. Physical properties of Mono Ethylene
Estimated Location Va Glycol can be found in Table 2.
L  2593.682m
of the Pig A
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 43

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

MEG Calculations for 32” Pipeline:

Formula C 2H 6O 2
Molecular Weight, g/mol 62 Pipeline Internal Diameter ID  771.6mm

Boiling Point @ 760 mm Hg, °C (°F) 197 (387) Pipeline Cross 

A  ID 2  0.4676m 2
Section Area 4
Vapor Pressure @ 20°C (68°F) mm Hg 0.06
Density, (g/cc) @ 20°C (68°F) 1.115
Total MEG Volume M  40  0.4676  18.7m3

Density, (g/cc) @ 60°C (140°F) 1.096 1.085

MEG Calculations for 18” Pipeline:
Freezing Point °C (°F) -13.4 (7.9)
Viscosity, cP @ 25°C (68°F) 16.9 Pipeline Internal Diameter ID  425.2mm

Viscosity, cP @ 60°C (140°F) 5.2 Pipeline Cross 

A  ID 2  0.142m 2
Section Area 4
Table 2: Physical Properties of Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG) [11] Total MEG Volume M  40  0.142  5.7m3

In this project, usage of MEG is considered to wash the F oam

pipeline inner wall and clean it from residual hydrocar-
bon contaminations and condensate liquids which are Once all the pigs are launched into the pipeline, there is
likely to get vaporized and endanger the safety condi- still a possibility that inflammable gases might penetrate
tions of the operation. For this purpose, an amount of around the pigs and through the batching materials and
40 meters of each pipeline`s length is considered to be may come up the riser affecting the safe condition of hot
filled with MEG. The implemented facilities for injection work area. In order to reduce the risk of this probable
of MEG into the pipeline are illustrated in figure 11. case, an expanded form of AFFF foam is considered to
be exerted into the pipeline. This kind of foam is capa-
The required amount of MEG which corresponds ble of preventing the penetration of inflammable gases
to 40 meters of each pipeline is calculated as through the area which is covered with the expanded
per following equations. form. The expanded foam is required to fill the pipeline
area behind the last pig, through the riser and up to the
pig launcher. The chemical
to be provided for this pur-
pose needed to function as
the below requirements:

• Provide appropriate Ex-

pansion Ratio to fill the
pipeline in platform and
riser area
• Appropriate viscosity
to move along pipeline
from injection point
(launcher) toward piping
Figure 10: Schematic diagram of Nitrogen injection facilities
bends and riser
• Ability to prevent inflam-
mable vapors from passing
the expanded foam area
and travel from inside the
pipeline through cutting
area and suppression of
condensate gases
• Washing the pipeline inner
wall from condensate
liquids which produces
Figure 11: Schematic diagram of MEG injection facilities
flammable gases
44 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Abovementioned requirements are needed since the According to the aforementioned procedure for mixing
chemical has to be solved in fresh water. The solution and expansion of AFFF foam, the required amount of
might remain still and stagnant for a specified period. foam which needs to be considered corresponding to
Normal dosage for application of AFFF foams is usually almost 200 meters of 32” pipeline and 300 meters of
defined from 3% to 6% to be dissolved in water. 18” pipeline (length of the pipeline behind last pig along
with riser, launcher, bends and piping through the plat-
As per the mentioned requirements and with consultan- form) is calculated as per following equations. It should
cy with professional AFFF foam providers, implemented also be mentioned that since the expanded foam loses
chemical for forming the desired foam was chosen to be its expanded state and turns back into the water/foam
Medium Expansion Foam with code of AT150 which has mixture within a certain period of time (drainage time),
the following properties: an extra amount of 10% is conservatively needed to be
calculated in order to compensate this volume loss and
Appearance Liquid provide a better estimation.
Color Clear Liquid
AFFF Foam Calculations for 32” Pipeline:
Specific Gravity in20c 1.0±0.02
Pipeline Internal
PH 6.5-8.5 ID  771.6mm
Diameter:
Drainage Time25% 3-6 Min 
Pipeline Cross
Sediments %Vol None A  ID 2  0.4676m 2
Section Area 4
Film Forming Yes Volume of
V  1.1 200  0.4676  102.87m3
ST <20 Expanded Foam
Shelf Life 2 Years Volume of Wa- V 102.87
VM    5.14m3
Packaging Plastic Drum – 200Lt ter/Foam Mixture ExpansionRatio 20
Volume of
VF  0.06  VM  0.308m3  308Lit
AFFF Foam
Table 3: Typical Properties of Medium Expansion AFFF Foam [12]

AFFF Foam Calculations for 18” Pipeline:

This foam is mixed with fresh water with a mixing Pipeline Internal
percentage of 6% by means of a device called inductor; ID  425.2mm
Diameter
and is expanded through a foam expansion nozzle.
Pipeline Cross 
The expansion ratio of medium expansion foams are A  ID 2  0.142m 2
Section Area 4
usually stated between 20 to1 and 200 to 1. For this
kind of foam, the expansion ratio of almost 20 to 1 Volume of
V  1.1 300  0.142  46.86m3
is expressed by its producer [12]. The implemented Expanded Foam
equipment for mixing, producing and developing the Volume of Wa- V 46.86
VM    2.34m3
AFFF foam for the purpose of being poured into the ter/Foam Mixture ExpansionRatio 20
pipeline are illustrated in figure 12. Volume of AFFF
VF  0.06  VM  0.140m3  140Lit
Foam:

E quipment P reparation

When performing a sensitive

high-risk offshore project,
it is highly essential that
all equipment and acces-
sories be fully checked and
prepared. In this matter,
there are some major items
that need to be taken under
consideration.

• All equipment and

facilities should be
checked and operated
Figure 12: Schematic diagram of AFFF foam mixing, producing and developing equipment
at onshore.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 45

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

• Full process circuit of each operational section of Methane Ethane Propane Butane
project should once be run at onshore. 5% 3% 2.3% 1.9%
• Each equipment should have a spare unit with the
same characteristics.
Table 4: LEL limits for some hydrocarbon gases [13]
• All the equipment`s parts and accessories should
be followed by enough spare parts.
• Consuming materials should be ordered with extra
amounts for backup and unpredicted cases.

Figures 13-15 present the implemented equipment in

this project.

OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES

The project was commenced in May 2017 on an offshore

platform in South Pars Gas Field. The whole operational
activities on both pipelines were completed within less
than 4 days. For performing the job, all equipment was
placed on a supply vessel landing beside the platform.
Hose connections were made from vessel to the platform
for injection of Nitrogen, MEG and water for making foam.

S afety R equirements
Figure 13: Nitrogen tanks and vaporizers placed on supply vessel [14]

In order to provide a fully safe condition for performing

hot work operation on the pipelines at the platform,
there are some safety considerations and criteria which
need to be taken into account.

Before performing work involving an atmosphere that

may contain an explosive gas, the atmosphere may
need to be tested to determine if a flammable mixture is
present. Where atmospheric testing is required, it must
be done before work begins and may be required at
regular intervals while work continues. The most com-
mon unit of measurement is the percentage of the lower
explosive limit (% LEL). The LEL is the minimum amount
of fuel that must be present in air to ignite. If the air/fuel
mixture is below the LEL, it is considered too “lean” and
will not ignite [13]. Table 4 shows the LEL limits for some
hydrocarbon gases.
Figure 14: Diesel engine pump [14]

I solation of 32” P ipeline

and C utting the T-P iece

At the beginning of oper-

ational activities on each
pipeline, due to previous
presence of sour gas in the
pipeline and launcher, pres-
surizing was performed on
each launcher by means of
Nitrogen injection with MOV
valve at closed position, and
venting the mixture of Nitro-
gen and gas for 3 times; Each
time with 5 bar pressure. Figure 15: Left: Inductor; Right: Foam Expansion Nozzle [14]
46 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

After completion of initial isolation of the launcher, The isolation plan was precisely followed as per the
launcher door was opened and LEL and H2S content designed approach. Implementation of isolation
were measured by HSE officers while using full PPE procedure took almost 10 hours and the system was
and BA . Once the hazardous gases in the area were ready for dismantling the bypass piping and cutting the
acceptable for presence of other personnel, the rest of barred tee which totally took 6 hours during which a
designed isolation plan were followed. At each stage of low flow rate of Nitrogen was also provided to prepare a
the operation, work permit was issued after checking safe condition during the hot work process. A summary
the LEL and H2S content. of applied process and its conditions can be observed
in figures 16 and 17.

Figure 16: Summary of isolation operation on 32” pipeline [14]

Figure 17: Left: Foam injection into 32” launcher; Middle: 32” launcher filled with foam; Right: Receiving foam at drain in bypass pipe [14]
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48 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

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Figure 18: Summary of isolation operation on 18” pipeline [14]

Figure 19: Left: Receiving foram at 18” bypass pipe, Right: Cutting the 18” barred tee piece [14]
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 49

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

“
This isolation method, in addition to References

being remarkably cost effective, utilizes the [1] Henning Bø, T.D. Williamson, Inc., “Platform Decommissioning: Case Studies in Pipeline Net-
work Reconfiguration”, Pigging Products & Services Association (PPSA) Seminar, 2015
simplest possible facilities with the most us- [2]
[3]
Chevron Pipe Line Company, Isolation of Hazardous Energy Standard, January 2013
Mark Smith, Elaine Maruca, “Getting it Right the First Time: 100% Isolation”, PLIDCO, World
er-friendly approach leading to an easy-to-use, [4]
Pipelines, May 2014
Jostein Aleksandersen, Edd Tveit, Plugging Specialists International, “The Smart Plug: A
fast and affordable technique resulting in a Remotely Controlled Pipeline Isolation System”, the Eleventh International Offshore and Polar
Engineering Conference, Stavanger, Norway, 17-22 June 2001
high operational safety condition. [5] AK ARORA, AD (AI), “Case Study: Flash Fire during Underground Pipeline Repair”, Oil Industry
Safety Directorate, Process and Engineering Group
Pooya Gholami [6]
[7]
Stats Group, Products and Services, Isolation and Intervention
Norsk olje & gass, “Best practice for isolation when working on hydrocarbon equipment: plan-
ning, isolation and reinstatement”, Report by Norwegian Oil and Gas, 21 June 2013
[8] James E. A. John, Theo G. Keith, “Gas Dynamics”, Third Edition, Published by Pearson Prentice
I solation of 18” P ipeline and C utting the T-P iece Hall, 2006
[9] DOW Chemical Company, Engineering and Operating Guide
[10] Schlumberger, PUREMEG, Monoethylene Glycol Reclamation and Regeneration Unit
[11] MEGlobal, Ethylene Glycol Product Guide
The same series of activities were performed for 18” [12] ATASHBAS PARS, Medium Expansion Foam (AT150) Data Sheet
[13] Occupational Health and Safety Code, “Fire and Explosion Hazards”, Explanation Guide, Part
pipeline. The total isolation operation on this pipeline 10, 2009
[14] IPEC Confidential Documents of Projects` Histories, 2014-2018
took 6 hours and was followed by 3 hours of low flow Ni-
trogen injection during cutting the barred tee to prepare
a complete safe condition during the hot work operation.
A summary of applied process and it conditions for the
18” pipeline can be observed in figures 18 and 19.
Authors
CONCLUSION
Pooya Gholami
There have been several methods and technologies for IPEC, Pipeline and Process
pipeline isolation in oil and gas industry each of which
come with their own advantages and disadvantages. Services
There are miscellaneous parameters such as time, cost, Operation Manager
pipeline location, accessibility of the ideal technology,
operational safety of the method etc. affecting the deci- pooyagholami@gmail.com
sion for choosing the desired isolation method. The im-
plemented method for pipeline isolation in this study, in
addition to being remarkably cost effective, utilizes the
simplest possible facilities with the most user-friendly
approach leading to an easy-to-use, fast and affordable
technique resulting in a high operational safety condi- Hadi Tabassomi
tion in live offshore platforms. IPEC, Pipeline and Process
During the operational activities of this project, and Services
each time the launcher door was opened, LEL and H2S Chairman of the Board and
content were measured in the environment before per-
forming any activity which involved manpower presence. Engineering Director
As all the steps of this isolation designed approach were tabassomi@ipecgroup.net
followed precisely, the measured LEL and H2S content
were always zero at all the stages.

After completion of isolation operation and approval

of safe conditions, the barred tee pieces were cut and Mahdi Nouri
the bypass line was removed successfully without and IPEC, Pipeline and Process
problematic issue. The implemented procedure showed
a reliable result in performing safe isolation for hot work Services
operations. The remaining pigs and material inside the Member of the Board and
pipeline were recovered during restarting the refinery
after shut down. Pipeline Projects Director

Acknowledgment nouri@ipecgroup.net

The authors would like to thank IPEC for permission to publish this paper. The authors also express
their sincere appreciation to Client for cooperation and full support during operation of this project in
South Pars Gad Field.
 Pipeline Ocensa
Autres pipelines

APPLICABILITY OF DYNAMIC BEHAVIOUR STUDIES ON

OCENSA’S OFFSHORE PIPELINE OVER LIQUEFIED SEABED
Alejandro Marín > Oleoducto Central S.A (OCENSA)

ABSTRACT
Applicability of a simplified pipe-soil interaction model on determining pipeline’s dynamic behaviour, once sea-
bed support is lost due to seabed liquefaction, is evaluated over Oleoducto Central-Ocensa (central oil pipe-
line). Located in Colombia, South-America, this transportation line has 12.5km of subsea pipeline in the Gulf
of Morrosquillo-Caribbean Sea. Crude oil from eastern plains of Colombia, is transported throughout this 42”
pipeline, which is stored at the maritime terminal of Coveñas, before being loaded to tankers for exportation.

Pipeline’s loss of support length is function of metocean features such as wave height, length, period, sea-
bed depth, among others. Once the simplified pipe-soil interaction model is applied, calculation of pipeline’s
dynamic behaviour in terms of wall stress, for typical Gulf of Morrosquillo’s metocean environment may be
possible; as of this, critical conditions for pipeline’s operation are identified, and seabed geotechnical main-
tenance plans are defined, based on rational methods, in order to minimise harm potential over pipeline’s
integrity due to seabed loss of support.
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 51

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

Due to oil & gas offshore production, seabed pipeline’s Moreover, Wang et al. (2004) developed a numerical
deployment is necessary for hydrocarbons transpor- approach based on Biot’s consolidation theory where
tation, through shallow and water depths greater than interaction between soil skeleton and inter-granular
1000 meters. In the same way, transportation lines and water is regarded, but neglecting acceleration compo-
additional facilities such as Tanker Loading Units (TLU) nents for simplification. Similar developments based on
must be installed, for transfer, connection and loading Biot´s consolidation theory such as the undertaken by
activities in order to guarantee crude oil exportation to Zienkiewicz (1981), Ulker (2009) and Ulker (2012) have
tankers. Therefore, it is mandatory the undertaking of related fully dynamic, partially dynamic and quasi-stat-
rigorous and exhaustive analysis of seabed behaviour, ic formulations to account the seabed response to a
in order to develop accurate integrity and maintenance wave-induced pressure, as a function of metocean and
plans based on metocean features (i.e. wave height, seabed parameters variation.
length, period, seabed depth, tidal and wave current),
and factors as geohazards associated to metocean Linear wave theory has been applied to associate sea-
conditions, like landslides on the continental slopes bed liquefaction onset, and its transient behaviour, to
and stress states’ variations within the seabed, leading wave induced pressure over the seabed. Gao et al. (2011)
to liquefaction. established the seabed response in terms of vertical
stress, horizontal stress, shear stress and pore water
Evidence of large seabed liquefaction areas are report- pressure entirely as function of the harmonic wave-load
ed in Christian et al. (1997), where identification of large [(2πx / L) – (2πt / T)] and its repercussion at any depth
zones exceeding 100m of submarine slope failures, by means of classic Boussinesq principle.
due to seabed liquefaction were exposed close to the
Fraser River Delta, as well as those reported within the Although liquefaction potential decreases as fine grain-
Yellow River Delta by Jia et al. (2014). Therefore, large size content increases, regardless a high wave induced
scale seabed failures due to earthquakes and wave pressure over the seabed, once an almost saturated
induced stresses causing seabed liquefaction, are a porous media (i.e. S≈1) is assumed, wave induced stress
reality, which must be addressed to guarantee subsea over soil may develop an instantaneously reduction of
pipelines’ integrity. the mean effective stress (Ulker, 2012). Consequently,
instantaneous liquefaction may occur even though a low
It has been also identified, that influence of wave in- soil permeability is given (i.e. dense sands or high fine
duced pressure over seabed is greater in shallow water grain-size content soils).
than in deeper water. Above mentioned, increases
seabed liquefaction potential as consequence of pore Additionally, according to Ulker (2009), cyclic wave in-
water pressure raising. However, influence of grain-size duced pressure over seabed develop downward (i.e. suc-
on seabed liquefaction, among other parameters, must tion or negative pore water pressure) and upward pore
be addressed; aforementioned potential decreases water flow. The latter, leads to wave induced liquefaction
once seabed fine grain-size content increases (i.e. silts once seepage force, governed by upward flow, overtakes
and clays), regardless a high wave induced pressure the submerged unit weight of soil (Figure 1).
over the latter.

Even though it is necessary to embrace comprehensive

methods on describing seabed liquefaction, and even
more, interaction between liquefied soil and pipeline
dynamic behaviour, there is still deficiencies to allow
pipelines operators to stablish criteria for decision
making based on its quantification. Nevertheless, experi-
mental studies as those conducted by Teh et al. (2003)
have demonstrated that for subsea pipelines design, cur-
rent design methods and approaches fulfil sufficiently
stability requirements for a non-liquefied seabed, but are
not adequate once the seabed experiences liquefaction.
This, due to absence of liquefied seabed characterisa-
tion and a subsequent deficiency on pipe-liquefied soil Figure 1: Upward pore water flow during seabed liquefaction, after Teh et al.
interaction prediction. (2006)
52 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

As of this, once pipelines’ behaviour in terms of wall

stress and strain is desired to be estimated, regarding its
sinking degree within the liquefied seabed, it is neces-
sary to define the magnitude of upward pore water flow,
once liquefaction takes place. This process is shown
schematically in Figure 3.

METHODOLOGY

Since seabed stress field, related to wave motion, which

induces liquefaction varies according to simple har-
monic motion, seabed dynamic response will be conse-
quently governed by this motion. Thus, seabed dynamic
Figure 2: Instability phases throughout time for a heavy pipeline over liquefied response in terms of stresses and displacements due to
seabed, after Teh et al. (2003)
liquefaction, is calculated regarding a coupled soil skele-
ton-pore water flow model.
According to experimental studies conducted by Teh et
al. (2003), heavy pipelines (i.e. large diameter) instability For practical purposes, liquefied seabed length is equal
phases, once seabed liquefaction takes place, can be to the wave length (L) that induces harmonic pressure
described as plotted in Figure 2. over it, according to seabed dynamic response ap-
proaches conducted by Wang et al. (2004), Ulker et al.
Regarding this scenario, for time t 1, the hydrodynamic (2009) and Ulker (2009; 2012).
wave induced pressure is not sufficient to move the
heavy pipeline, but is large enough to liquefy the seabed Modelling scenarios conducted by Marín (2015), exhibit
(i.e. the pipeline is stable); for times t 2 and t 3 the pipeline pipelines’ dynamic behaviour where seabed dynamic
starts to move and therefore sinking into the liquefied response, regarding coupled soil skeleton-pore water
soil mass, up to a final position for time t 4. flow, was accounted. In the study, different pipe diame-
ters and seabed depths were adopted, analysing 10”, 16”,
Furthermore, according to Teh et al. (2006), both posi- 24”, 36” pipe diameters, and 25m, 50m, 75m and 100m
tive pore pressure and negative pore pressure may take seabed depths, respectively. Figure 4 shows normalised
place under cyclic loading around a submarine structure vertical stress variation within seabed, for a 25m seabed
(e.g. a pipeline). Also, the author claims both sinking depth and T=5s wave period scenario.
velocity and depth are greater for a heavier pipe, whilst
a lighter pipe (i.e. small diameter pipelines) tends to After Marín (2015), light pipelines (i.e. 10” and 16”) be-
float once soil liquefies. In order to describe abovemen- haviour was found to be sensitive to seabed dynamic
tioned behaviours, Teh et al. (2006) stated three differ- response once liquefaction takes place, according to
ent modes governing the extent of pipeline sinking once Mode I stated after Teh et al. (2006). Conversely, heavier
seabed experiments liquefaction, related to seabed pipelines (i.e. 24” and 36”) behaviour was found to be
bearing capacity lost associated to depletion of vertical governed by their own weight, aligned to Mode III after
effective stress (i.e. σ’ v =0): Teh et al. (2006).

• Mode I: For a slow sinking light pipe, the gradient of

the increasing pore pressure acts as buoyancy force
stopping the downward advance of it;
• Mode II: Pipe stops sinking, due to the increase or
recover of soil bearing capacity, once excess of pore
water pressure starts dissipating or when the pres-
sure gradient is not sufficient;
• Mode III: For a fast sinking heavy pipe, it will con-
tinue to sink whether the sinking velocity is greater
than the excess of pore pressure dissipation rate,
or the pressure gradient is not enough to act as a
buoyant force. Once it reaches a stable stratum, it Figure 3: Excess of pore water pressure (u) and vertical effective stress (σ’v)
may stop sinking. under a) non-liquefied seabed and b) liquefied seabed, after Teh et al. (2006)
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 53

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

The above mentioned is shown in Figure 5, where the

influenced dynamic behaviour for a 10” pipeline, once
seabed dynamic response is accounted (in terms of pore
water pressure, vertical, horizontal and shear stress vari-
ation, plotted as the red curve), is evident if compared to
pipeline dynamic behaviour regarding the assumption of
an incompressible fluid-like seabed response (i.e. blue
curve). On the other hand, in Figure 6 is shown how for a
36” pipe, its dynamic behaviour is not influenced by the
liquefied seabed dynamic response, reflected on similar
curve paths (i.e. blue and purple curves).

According to previously mentioned, Ocensa’s 42” off-

shore pipeline is not expected to exhibit changes on its
dynamic behaviour once seabed dynamic response is Figure 4: Normalised vertical stress variation within seabed thickness, for T=5s
wave period, 25m seabed depth scenario, after Marín (2015)
accounted. Hence, it may be assumed an incompressible
or fluidised-like seabed response, when pipeline dynam-
ic behaviour is desired to be calculated.

However, is relevant to account that models completed

by Marín (2015) included low D/t ratios, between 21 and
30, which means significant thickness if compared to its
diameter. Above mentioned leads large diameter pipe-
lines’ dynamic behaviour to be aligned to Mode III after
Teh et al. (2006).

Nevertheless, Ocensa’s 42” offshore pipeline D/t ratio

is 84, which means reduced thickness compared to its
diameter. As of this, it may be suggested a potential for
this pipeline, to exhibit a dynamic behaviour influenced
by seabed dynamic response, due to a low mass per-
centage in relation to its size.

Accordingly, models regardless seabed dynamic re- Figure 5: Light pipeline (10”) dynamic behaviour variation, as function of sea-
bed dynamic response, after Marín (2015)
sponse (i.e. liquefied soil assumed as an incompress-
ible fluid) and regarding the latter, were conducted. The
latter, in order to validate if whether a large diameter
pipeline-low D/t ratio, as Ocensa 42”, follows Teh et al.
(2006) and Marín (2015) suggested dynamic response,
or reveals different behaviour based on its high D/t ratio.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Adopted mechanical and operational parameters for

modelling are shown in Table 1.

Properties Value
Steel grade API 5L X60
Outer diameter 42”
Wall thickness 12.7 mm
Operation pressure 1.0 MPa

Figure 6: Heavy pipeline (36”) dynamic behaviour variation, as function of

Table 1: Pipeline properties adopted for modelling seabed dynamic response, after Marín (2015)
54 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Accounting relative steady slope throughout Ocensa 42” action Finite Element Model (FEM). For seabed dynamic
alignment of 12.5km, mean water depth of 29m for seabed response calculation, a linear system with simultaneous
dynamic response and pipeline dynamic behaviour calcu- equations set are derived, where non-dimensional matrix
lations, induced by harmonic wave pressure, was adopted. is required to be solved, leading to equations shown as
follows, whose solving procedures can be consulted in
For pipeline dynamic behaviour estimation, where seabed aforementioned references.
dynamic response using cou-
pled model, is not accounted, ª w § E –2 i · w º
« E – 2 m 2N imN ¨   m 2N ¸ imN »
assumptions done by Foda w z © n –1x ¹ wz
« »
and Hunt (1993) were em- «
w § w 2
· w § E –2 i w 2
· » ­U x ½
braced. Hence, once sea- « imN ¨ E – 2 N ¸ imN ¨  N ¸»
« w z © w z 2 ¹ w z © n –1z w z 2 ¹ » °°U z °°
bed is liquefied, its bearing « »® ¾ 0
capacity and shear strength «§ w2 · w w » °Wx °
reduce to zero. What is more, «¨© 2
– m  N 2
2
2 ¸
w z ¹
im  N  N 1  N 2 
w z

E – 2 m N2
 imN
wz » °¯Wz °¿
« »
seabed behaviour may be « w § w2 · w § w2 · »
described as an incompress- « im N  N1  N 2  ¨ – 2 m N 2  imN ¨ E – 2 N ¸ »
2
¸
« w z © wzz 2 ¹ w z © w z 2 ¹ »¼
ible liquid, adopting a similar ¬
harmonic motion described
by wave over it. In terms of metocean environment and  6  j   j  i kx t
z

based on linear wave theory, abovementioned harmonic  'zz  

 ik   b j K   a j e  e 
h 

 j 1  h 
motion transmitted to seabed, as a pressure or stresses’
field q (p in equation below), is described by means of:
 6     j  i kx t
z

pw gH  'xx  
 ikK  b j  j   a e h
e
 
p  x, t  
j
e
i kw t 
 j 1  h  
2 cosh  kd 
 6  j   j  i kx t
z
Where k corresponds to wave number, ω to angular  'xz     ikb j    a j e  e
h 
frequency and x to wave length, varying through time t¸
 j 1  h 
equal to assumed wave period T.

K f  6  j   j hz  i kx 
t 
Complementary, values representing hydrodynamic p    ik 1  c j    j j  a j e  e
b  d
variables corresponds to real storm for Gulf of Mor- n  j 1  h  
rosquillo’s returning period of 100 years, as follows:
According to stated conditions, modelling scenarios
Parameter Value
were undertaken as:
Wave height 4.94m
Wave length 100m • Pipeline dynamic behaviour assuming liquefied soil as
Wave period 11 s an incompressible fluid, with equal harmonic motion as
Angular frequency 0.571 s -1 overlaying wave;
• Pipeline dynamic behaviour accounting seabed dynam-
Wave number 0.034 m -1
ic response, in terms of stresses and pore pressure, by
means of soil skeleton-pore water flow coupled model.
Table 2: Hydrodynamic parameters for returning period of 100 years
As previously mentioned, pipeline liquefied soil (or span)
For seabed dynamic response estimation, under wave length corresponds to calculated wave length for return-
induced cyclic loads in terms of soil skeleton stress- ing period of 100 years, which exerts cyclic pressure over
es and displacements, once liquefaction takes place, seabed, along 100 meters. Also, dynamic soil-pipeline
originally methodology proposed by Biot (1962) and interaction models were calculated for times (t) varying
further developed by Zienkiewicz (1981) and Ulker et al. between 0 and 11 seconds, which corresponds to adopt-
(2009), was utilised. This methodology states a coupled ed wave period for same returning period of 100 years.
model with equations relating soil particles’ strain and
displacement, to pore water flow induced by wave cyclic Typical graphic output of liquefied seabed-pipeline by
load. Aforementioned equations are solved to obtain means of Finite Element Model, undertaken for Ocensa
seabed dynamic response, in terms of vertical stresses, 42”, for maximum deformation is shown in figure 7. For
horizontal stresses, shear stresses and pore water pres- the analysis, symmetry principles in Z axis (i.e. parallel to
sure, applied as contact pressures in soil-pipeline inter- pipeline alignment) and in X axis (i.e. pipeline and seabed
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56 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

Figure 7: Graphic output from liquefied soil-pipeline Finite Element Model, for Ocensa 42”, for maximum deformation

cross section), in order to minimise number of elements

for model solids and its dimensions. The abovemen-
tioned allows the model to be analysed in less time and
reduces errors related to model solution convergence.

After modelling, plots regarding pipeline’s dynamic be-

haviour in terms of wall stresses and pipe´s deformation,
associated to loss of support due to seabed liquefaction
were obtained.

Figure 8 shows harmonic wave induced pressure over

seabed, for modelling assuming liquefied soil as an in-
compressible fluid, with equal harmonic motion as over-
laying wave, whilst Figure 9 shows point of maximum
Figure 8: Harmonic wave induced pressure over seabed, for pipeline dynamic stress location once seabed support is lost, correspond-
behaviour calculation assuming liquefied soil as an incompressible fluid
ing to pipeline´s bottom.

Figure 9: Maximum stress location once seabed support is lost

 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 57

RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT / TECHNOLOGY

To do so, periodic submarine inspections and regular

bathymetry studies must be conducted, in order to de-
termine and identify critical span lengths; additionally,
constant metocean parameters variations and weath-
er forecast monitoring must be rigorously done, since
accuracy on obtaining these variables is vital to models’
representativeness.

References

• Christian, H., Woeller, D., Robertson, P.K. and Courtney, R.C. (1997) ‘Site investigations to evaluate flow
liquefaction slides at Sand Heads, Fraser River delta’, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 34(3), pp. 384-397.
• Foda, M. and Hunt, J. (1993) ‘A nonlinear model for the fluidization of marine mud by waves’, Journal of
Geophysical Research, 98(C4), pp. 7039-7047.
• Jia, Y., Zhang, L., Zheng, J., Liu, X., Jeng, D.-S. and Shan, H. (2014) ‘Effects of wave-induced seabed lique-
faction on sediment re-suspension in the Yellow River Delta’, Ocean Engineering, 89, pp. 146-156.
• Marín, A. (2015) “Dynamic behaviour of shallow water pipelines due to seabed liquefaction”, Thesis for
Figure 10: Difference between pipeline´s dynamic behaviour assuming seabed MSc in Pipeline Engineering Degree, Newcastle University.
as an incompressible fluid (blue curve) and after calculating seabed dynamic • Ulker, M. (2009) ‘Dynamics of saturated porous media: Wave induced response and instability of
response (red curve) seabed’ Rahman, M. and Guddati, M. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing.
• Ulker, M.B.C. (2012) ‘Pore Pressure, Stress Distributions, and Instantaneous Liquefaction of Two-Layer
Soil under Waves’, J. Water. Port Coast. Ocean Eng.-ASCE, 138(6), pp. 435-450.
Finally, Figure 10 plots dynamic behaviour variation once • Ulker, M.B.C. and Rahman, M.S. (2009) ‘Response of saturated and nearly saturated porous media: Dif-
ferent formulations and their applicability’, International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in
liquefied soil is assumed as an incompressible fluid, and •
Geomechanics, 33(5), pp. 633-664.
Ulker, M.B.C., Rahman, M.S. and Jeng, D.S. (2009) ‘Wave-induced response of seabed: Various formula-
once seabed dynamic response is calculated by means •
tions and their applicability’, Applied Ocean Research, 31(1), pp. 12-24.
Teh, T., Palmer, A., Bolton, M.D. and Damgaard, J. (2006) ‘Stability of Submarine Pipelines on Liquefied
of skeleton-pore water flow coupled model. •
Seabeds’, Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering, 132(4), pp. 244-251.
Teh, T.C., Palmer, A. and Damgaard, J. (2003) ‘Experimental study of marine pipelines on unstable and
liquefied seabed’, Coast. Eng., 50(1), pp. 1-17.
• Wang, J., Zhang, B. and Nogami, T. (2004) ‘Wave-induced seabed response analysis by radial point
CONCLUSIONS •
interpolation meshless method’, Ocean Eng., 31(1), pp. 21-42.
Zienkiewicz, O., Chang CT, Bettess P. 18 (1981) ‘Drained, undrained, consolidating and dynamic behaviour
assumptions in soils: Zienkiewicz, O C; Chang, C T; Bettess, P Geotechnique, V30, N4, Dec 1980,
P385–395’ Chang CT, B.P., pp. 48-4
After modelling, differences between pipeline’s dynam-
ic behaviour assuming liquefied seabed as an incom-
pressible fluid, and after calculating seabed response as
contact pressures over the pipe, were recognised. Author
Found results differs from conducted by Teh et al. (2006) Alejandro Marín
and Marín (2015), where large diameter pipelines (i.e.
Oleoducto Central S.A (OCENSA)
heavy pipelines) show trends on their dynamic behaviour
once seabed support is lost, governed by their own Senior Integrity Engineer
weight, inertial moment, angular frequency and oscilla-
Alejandro.marin@ocensa.com.co
tion amplitude, regardless dynamic seabed response.

Behaviour abovementioned is potentially influenced

by D/t ratio, due to as previously stated, in spite of
being a large diameter pipeline, associated mass is
low regarding its reduced thickness value. The latter,
since external hydrostatic pressure requirements for
Ocensa´s 42” offshore pipeline are low related to its
shallow water location.

Therefore, a potential of being influenced by liquefied

seabed response under influence of wave cyclic loads, for
the studied pipeline may be suggested. In this way, it is
recommended to complete soil-pipeline interaction mod-
els once integrity and maintenance plans are undertaken.

Finally, it is also recommendable to complement

soil-pipeline interaction models with Vortex In-
duced Vibration (VIV) analysis, addressing
to identify potential pipeline damage
associated to fatigue induced
by cyclic stresses.
 58 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

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Yokogawa Herrenknecht
Japan Germany
www.yokogawa.com www.herrenknecht.com

IPLOCA - International Pipe Line & Offshore Contractors Association

Certification Switzerland
www.iploca.com
Bureau Veritas
Germany MAX STREICHER
www.bureauveritas.de Germany
www.streicher.de/en

Cleaning Petro IT
Ireland
Reinhart Hydrocleaning www.petroit.com
Switzerland
www.rhc-sa.ch/rhc/ VACUWORX
Netherlands
www.vacuworx.com
Coating
Vlentec
Denso The Netherlands
Germany www.vlentec.com
www.denso.de

Kebulin-gesellschaft Kettler Construction Machinery

Germany
www.kebu.de Maats
Netherlands
Polyguard Products www.maats.com
United States
www.polyguard.com Worldwide Group
Germany
Premier Coatings www.worldwidemachinery.com
United Kingdom
www.premiercoatings.com/
Engineering
RPR Technologies
Norway ILF Consulting Engineers
www.rprtech.com/ Germany
www.ilf.com
Shawcor
United States KÖTTER Consulting Engineers
www.shawcor.com Germany
www.koetter-consulting.com
TDC International
Switzerland Further boost your brand awareness
www.tdc-int.com
and list your company within the ptj -
TIB Chemicals Company Directory
Germany
www.tib-chemicals.com
www.pipeline-journal.net/advertise
 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 65

COMPANY DIRECTORY

Inline Inspection Integrity Management

3P Services Metegrity
Germany Canada
www.3p-services.com www.metegrity.com

A.Hak Industrial Services Pipeline Innovations

Netherlands United Kingdom
www.a-hak-is.com www.pipeline-innovations.com

Intero Integrity Services

Netherlands Leak Detection
www.intero-integrity.com/
Asel-Tech
KTN AS Brazil
Norway www.asel-tech.com
www.ktn.no
Atmos International
LIN SCAN United Kingdom
United Arab Emirates www.atmosi.com
www.linscaninspection.com
Direct-C
NDT Global Canada
Germany www.direct-c.ca
www.ndt-global.com
Entegra
Pipesurvey International United States
Netherlands www.entegrasolutions.com
www.pipesurveyinternational.com
GOTTSBERG Leak Detection
PPSA - Pigging Products and Services Association Germany
United Kingdom www.leak-detection.de
www.ppsa-online.com
MSA
Romstar Germany
Malaysia www.MSAsafety.com/detection
www.romstargroup.com
OptaSense
Rosen United Kingdom
Switzerland www.optasense.com
www.rosen-group.com
Pergam Suisse
Switzerland
Inspection www.pergam-suisse.ch

Ametek – Division Creaform PSI Software

Germany Germany
www.creaform3d.com www.psioilandgas.com

Applus RTD sebaKMT

Germany Germany
www.applusrtd.com www.sebakmt.com

EMPIT SolAres (Solgeo / Aresys)

Germany Italy
www.empit.com www.solaresweb.com
66 PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL

COMPANY DIRECTORY

Monitoring Safety
Krohne Messtechnik DEHN & SÖHNE
Germany Germany
www.krohne.com www.dehn-international.com/en

HIMA
Operators Germany
www.hima.de
TRAPIL
France TÜV SÜD Indutrie Service
www.trapil.com/en/ Germany
www.tuev-sued.de/is

Pump and Compressor Stations

Signage
TNO
The Netherlands Franken Plastik
www.pulsim.tno.nl Germany
www.frankenplastik.de/en

Repair
Standards & Regulations
CITADEL TECHNOLOGIES
United States DNV GL
www.cittech.com Norway
www.dnvgl.com
Clock Spring
United States DVGW - German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water
www.clockspring.com Germany
www.dvgw.de
RAM-100
United States
www.ram100intl.com Surface Preparation
T.D. Williamson MONTI - Werkzeuge GmbH
United States Germany
www.tdwilliamson.com www.monti.de

Research & Development Trenchless Technologies

Pipeline Transport Institute (PTI LLC) GSTT - German Society for Trenchless Technology
Russia Germany
www.en.niitn.transneft.ru www.gstt.de

Rädlinger Primus Line

Valves & Fittings Germany
www.primusline.com
AUMA
Germany
www.auma.com Further boost your brand awareness
and list your company within the ptj -
Zwick Armaturen
Germany
Company Directory
www.zwick-armaturen.de
www.pipeline-journal.net/advertise
 14TH PIPELINE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
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+18 MARCH 2019 ptc Side conferences and Seminars
www.pipeline-conference.com

Next Issue: November 2018

Pipeline Technology Journal

In the next Edition of ptj:

Planning & Construction
www.pipeline-journal.net

Event Calendar

gat | wat 2018 23 - 25 October 2018 Berlin, Germany

ADIPEC 12 - 15 November 2018 Abu Dhabi, UAE

14th Pipeline Technology Conference (ptc) 19 - 21 March 2019 Berlin, Germany

ptc Side Conferences:
on Qualification & Recruitment 18 March 2019 Berlin, Germany
on Public Perception 18 March 2019 Berlin, Germany
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