Welcome

Opening and Welcome Presentation

Dennis Fandrich

Keynote Speech "Pipelines – To Reuse or Not to Reuse"

The UK seabed plays home to 1000 pipelines measuring over 45,000 kilometers, that the renewables industry could potentially reuse. Using existing pipelines reduces the infrastructure cost for renewable energy, minimising the initial upfront capital expenditure of commissioning a new pipeline by as much as 70%.

Not all of these pipelines will be suitable for transporting CO2 or hydrogen. Therefore, each one must be assessed to determine its suitability for reuse. This assessment is fundamental to any reuse project but is a time-consuming and challenging task. One option is to reapply the appropriate design codes. However, as the pipeline has already been in use, this is insufficient and involves significant work to assess its suitability fully.

The oil and gas industry has already developed a comprehensive methodology for assessing pipelines that examines the pipeline's life and the elements that would need to be addressed based on Failure Modes, Effects and Critically Analysis (FMECA). This approach was adapted to apply to reuse in the renewables sector, and high-level test cases were conducted. These assessments focused on reusing the pipelines to transport CO2 or H2 and demonstrated that the methodology was a valid and valuable approach to assessing a pipelines fitness for change of use for renewable energy.

This presentation will cover the background behind the methodology as well as presenting a summary of the findings from the test case.

Greg Jones

Panel Discussion "The Future of the Offshore Pipeline Industry"

Panel discussion with live Q&A session

Philip Cooper

Rafael Familiar Solano

Carsten Schütt

Greg Jones

Networking Break

• Visit the Virtual Exhibition
• Browse the list of participants
• Chat with other participants

Technical Session Moderation

Technical session and live Q&A moderation.

Danny Molyneux

Highlights and challenges of dry pre-commissioning

Newly installed gas export pipelines have traditionally been flooded, hydrotested, dewatered and air dried before finally being nitrogen inerted, prior to commissioning gas-up. For long export pipelines, typically of high diameter, this process is both time and resource intensive. A large volume of water is pulled from the sea, via a filtration and chemical dosing processes before being pumped into the pipeline. This water is then pressurized to provide a strength test of the pipeline and establish its leak-tightness. The subsequent dewatering and drying phases, particularly for deepwater pipelines, require enormous horsepower from air compression units that will run for weeks.

However, in conjunction with pipeline operators and DNV GL, Baker Hughes PPS has pioneered a new way to pre-commission these massive export lines, where the disadvantages with the system pressure test are extraordinary. Instead, the strength assessment of the pipeline is made under the DNV waiver via stringent requirements of the mill pressure tests, rigorous inspection and test of joints made during construction, higher design factors of safety and an installation track-record.

The term “dry pre-commissioning” refers to the removal of the flood and hydrotest operations. Consequently, the air-drying phase is also either eliminated or significantly condensed. Pipeline cleaning, conditioning, gauging and caliper inspection remain likely project requirements. Performing these operations without the traditional flooding of the pipeline is challenging, particularly where the pipeline profile has significant elevation changes. Prediction and control of the pig speed, ensuring consistent MEG swabbing, sufficient cleaning with minimum fluid and minimizing the diesel-powered air-spread are all competing factors.

This presentation details several of those technical challenges that were overcome in the development of a successful and innovative “dry pre-commissioning” methodology that demonstrates the viability of the no-hydrotest approach for major export pipelines.

Peter Dixon

Intelligent solutions for crack inspections of challenging offshore pipelines, latest developments and case study

Pipeline system integrity has become increasingly important to pipeline operators. Accurate measurement and evaluation of the physical condition of oil and gas pipelines is critical to effective integrity management, as well as to assure pipeline safety.

Typically, inline inspection is carried out for the detection and sizing of geometry-, corrosion- and cracking defects. However, there are still many pipeline systems offshore which were never designed and built for conventional ILI tools and modifications would be extremely expensive.

KTN AS, Bergen, Norway, a company of the Rosen Group, has developed during the last 19 years a flexible tethered, bidi, self-propelled inspection tool for challenging pipelines which can combine technologies for measurement of the pipeline geometry (dents, ovalities, roofing etc.), wall thickness / corrosion / laminations, crack detection and precise crack sizing. Technologies used are piezo UT pulse echo vertical- and angular beam, phased array, TOFD, high resolution camera, grinding machine and eddy current based technologies for dry lines. This tool is tailor made for every inspection and cannot only detect axial cracks (SCC, fatigue crack etc.) but cracks in all directions (girth weld cracks, etc.). The crack depth and profile is measured quantitatively. Data collection is done on the way in and out, the results are visible in real-time.

The paper will explain the technologies used and the specifications achieved and will shortly give the results of successful projects done offshore as detection and accurate sizing of girth weld cracks, circumferential cracks at anodes and axial cracks in and along longseam welds.

Ulrich Schneider

Bi-Di High-Resolution Wall Thickness Inspection of a Subsea Flexible Riser Pipeline – Case Study

An North Sea operator required inspection of a subsea line critical to the company’s business. The pipeline system is transporting gas and condensate form a template to a platform. The Flexible Riser with a diameter of 10" and a total length of 720 m as well as its End Fittings were intended to be inspected in order to be able to assess the conditions of both critical parts of the asset.

The flexible raiser starting at a platform, going to the seabed on 322 meters depth is connected by its end fittings to a 6,5 km 10" subsea pipeline which ends in a template. Due to the system layout the inspection had to be done by a BiDi tool.

Since the Flexible Raiser and its End Fittings had never been inspected before and in order to obtain reliable evidence on the condition of this critical pipeline section, the requested ILI solution had to be capable to perform a high resolution measurement of the pitch between the carcasses in the raisers whole length and the critical end couplings as well as the End Fitting positions.

After careful evaluation of its options for inspecting the line, the operator chose NDT Global’s tailored Evo Series 1.0 UG ultrasonic geometry and wall thickness inspection tool. This tool equipped with two UG modules offers unsurpassed axial resolution of 0.75 mm, and circumferential resolution of 6.2 mm and is capable to run in dual directions

Thomas Mrugala

Thomas Meinzer

Closing

Closing Remarks

Dennis Fandrich