SLEIPNER A NORTH SEA OIL

PLATFORM COLLAPSE

Background

The original Sleipner A (SLA-1)

platform was to be used for oil and
natural gas drilling in the Sleipner gas
field in the NorthSea.
It was built in the fashion of typical
Condeep platforms but sank during a
controlled ballast test.
It was found that a combination of
poor geometry and inadequate design
were the causes of the platform failure.
The failure mechanism was concluded
to be a shear failure that split open
several walls in one of the platform
shafts, which led to rapid intake of
water.

Typical Condeep
Platform

Typical Condeep
Platform

Reinforced concrete structures meant to

float in water up to 300 meters deep.
Consists of a number of buoyancy cells
that serve as the floating mechanism.
Water ballast is pumped in and out of the
buoyancy cells to control the depth of the
lower portion of the structure (Gravity
Base Structure or GBS) in the water.
Several of the buoyancy cells extend
upward to provide structural support to
the deck, which contains all the buildings,
machinery and amenities needed for
several hundred people to live on the
platform and drill for natural gas.

Typical
Condeep
Platform

Construction Process

Starts on a dry dock, where all

of the buoyancy cells and
shafts are cast without
enclosing the cell tops.
The dock is then flooded, and
the conglomeration of
buoyancy cells is floated out to
a sheltered location with deep
water ("fjord"), where the
buoyancy cells that will not
support shafts are capped off,
and the GBS is slipformed
upward.

Construction Process

As more of the structure is

cast, water ballast is pumped
into the buoyancy cells to sink
the structure and keep the
construction close to the
water.
Once the GBS is completed,
the platform structure must
undergo a controlled ballast
test to test the mechanical
equipment under service loads
and check for minor leaks.

Construction Process

A controlled ballast test requires

the platform to be sunk until the
GBS is submerged, as it would
be during deck-mating, which
would follow at the end of the
test.
During deck-mating, the GBS is
sunk until submerged once
more, and the 55,000 ton deck
is floated above the GBS;
ballast is released from the
buoyancy cells, and the GBS
lifts the deck into the air. The
completed platform can then be
floated to its final location.

Partially completed buoyancy cells to be floated to a fjord

The Sleipner A-1

The Sleipner A-1

Reinforced Construction for SLA-1 started

in July of 1989, just under 2 years before
the failure of the GBS.
The SLA-1 platform had 24 buoyancy
cells, four of which extended into the
shafts that supported the deck.
Two of the shafts served as "drill shafts"
while the remaining two served as riser
and utility shafts.
The GBS was 110 meters tall, and
designed to operate in 82 meters of
water.
The deck that would be mated to the SLA1 GBS weighed approximately 57,000
tons.

The Sleipner A-1

The critical design detail in the SLA-1

platform was the connection of the
buoyancy cells to one another, called a
"tri-cell.
The reduced thickness of the walls in
SLA-1 tri-cells as compared to a typical
platform is attributed to an effort by the
designers to optimize the concrete
volume and tricell geometry.
The initial cost to build the SLA-1 GBS
was approximately $180 million (US).

Tri-cell geometry of a
typical platform compared
to the geometry of SLA-1.

Tri-cell joint reinforcement detailing and shaft wall

reinforcement detailing.

The Accident

The Accident

Sleipner A-1 was scheduled to

undergo deck-mating on1
September 1991. A second
controlled ballast test was
administered on the morning of
Friday, 23 August 1991 in the
Gjandsfjord near Stavanger
(southwest coastal Norway, in
the North Sea) after the
platform underwent repairs for
minor leaks discovered during
the first test.

The Accident

The platform began taking on

water uncontrollably at a
depth of 97.5 meters - about
5 meters from the anticipated
deck-mating depth.
The platform took between
17and 18.5minutes to
become fully submerged.
The 14 people on board at the
time of the accident were
successfully rescued with no
injuries.

Summary of Conditions

The initial intake of water was denoted

with a very "deep bang-like
sound"from one of the drill shafts, D3.
An eyewitness account indicated that
water ingress could be seen in the
lower portion of the shaft, at an
elevation of 49 meters or less.
The estimated size of the opening
required to sink the SLA-1 platform in
the observed time was approximately
0.4 square meters, which translates to
a calculated crack length of about 7 to
8 meters.

Summary of Conditions

At the time of failure, the D3 shaft wall was

experiencing a differential water pressure of
about 67 meters water head.
Undersea probes were released after the
failure to explore the sea floor and observe
the wreckage. The debris of the SLA-1
platform was scattered over an area of
roughly 90,000 square meters.
The top of one of the shafts could be
identified in the debris. 192 pieces of SLA-1
were mapped across the sea bed, indicating
a total collapse of the concrete GBS.
As a result of the complete demolition of
SLA-1, no physical evidence could be used
to indicate the cause of the failure.

Likely Causes

Likely Causes

It was concluded that the tri-cell walls

and supports at the cell joints were
the weakest points in the platform.
Calculations based on final design
geometry showed that the load on
these parts was at or very close to
their maximum capacity.

Likely Causes

The investigators from NC concluded

that "final failure was believed to take
place as crushing of the concrete,
presumably at the intersection
between the tri-cell wall and the cell
joint.
The investigators working for Statoil
agreed and elaborated on this
conclusion, reasoning that "shear
failure occurred due to lack of
transverse reinforcement.

The New Sleipner A

Platform (SLA-2)

The New Sleipner A-2

The new Sleipner platform (SLA-2) was

designed entirely using hand
calculations. This was the result of a
decision by Statoil to continue through
with the design while investigators
continued troubleshooting the software
used to design all of the NC platforms
in the North Sea.
The stipulation behind the SLA-2
design was that, in addition to hand
calculation and design, all of the
buoyancy cells in the platform were
modelled and analyzed before they left
the dry dock for further construction.

The New Sleipner A-2

The designers of SLA-2 changed the

cell wall geometry to minimize stress
concentrations.
The criteria for the new design
included a 10% higher load factor
when accounting for water pressure.
The formula for shear capacity was
revised as well.

The New Sleipner A-2

Overall, the total time spent on

verification of the design was
quadrupled in comparison to the
design of the SLA-1 GBS.
The SLA-2 platform was up and
operate in October of 1993, more
than 2 years after the initial SLA-1
GBS collapse.
The overall estimated cost of the
SLA-1 GBS collapse totals to $700
million, after taking into account the
downtime losses and cost to
redesign the platform.

Tri-cell geometry of
SLA-2 compared to the
geometry of SLA-1