SUBSEA ENGINEERING

UNIT 1 – OVERVIEW OF SUBSEA ENGINEERING

Metocean Conditions
“Metocean” refers to the combined effect of the Meteorology and Oceanography

• Local surface wind,

• Wind-generated local waves,

• Swell (long-period waves) generated by distant storms,

• Surface current also generated from the local storms,

• Energetic deep water currents associated with low frequency, large basin circulation,

• Non-storm-related currents, which are site-specific, such as loop current in the Gulf of Mexico or
coastal current in the Norwegian northern North Sea
Metocean – Why is it used ?
Met Ocean data is needed though out the life of a field

• EIA (environmental impact assessment) certification

• FEED studies

• Operational condition monitoring

• Hurricane/Cyclone warning

• Subsea current cyclone warning

• Decommissioning FEED studies & operational monitoring

Metocean Conditions
Unnecessary cost throughout the life of a field

• High cost monitoring with poor & intermittent data

• Production shut down due to safety considerations

• Remedial post build operations due to incorrect

FEED data input
Ocean Water Properties
• Density – Determines the forces on structure in water. Difference in density contributes to
internal waves in deeper region

• Dynamic viscosity – Viscosity x Mass Density

• Salinity – Less variable in in sea and has average 35% value

• Temperature – Highest at the surface and decays down to nearly constant value just above 0° at a
depth below 1000 m. Depends on location and season
Stability
• Stability is a way of describing the ability of a rig to
resist environmental forces.

• Intact stability is the rig’s ability to remain upright

when there is no damage or flooding

• Damage stability is the stability of a rig after

flooding has occurred

Stability is achieved via the interaction of buoyancy

and gravity acting on the vessel
Buoyant Force
• Archimedes found that any object immersed in a fluid is
subjected to an upthrust

• Upthrust force = Weight of fluid displaced

By Archimedes Principle
Density water = 62.4 lb/ft3
Vol. Submerged = 3141.6 ft3
Upthrust = (3141.6 x 62.4)/2000
= 98.02 short tons
By Considering Hydrostatic Pressure
Pressure acting on underside = 10 x 62.4 = 624lb/ft3
CSA of underside = 314.16 ft 2
Upthrust = 98.02 short tons
Buoyancy
• An object floats when it displaces its own weight of fluid before becoming completely submerged

• Objects sink when their weight exceeds the weight of fluid displaced by the submerged object

• It follows that a completely submerged body can hover in equilibrium if its weight equals its
buoyancy

• Buoyant force acts at the centroid of the displaced volume

• Buoyancy force is exactly equal and opposite to the gravity force

 Static Stability of Submerged Vessels
• Consider a cylindrical submerged body with centre of buoyancy at B.

• Upthrust (Fb) = Weight of body (W)

• Imagine the weight to be concentrated at G. If the body is disturbed

through an angle θ, the body is subjected to a restoring couple
= W. BG‘ . Sin θ and it will return to its original position

• The body is in stable equilibrium

W = weight of body in air

V = submerged volume
w = specific weight of fluid
Stability of Surface Vessels
• For stability, a righting moment must be produced when the vessel pitches or rolls to restore it to

an even keel

• Vessels are designed to remain stable when fully loaded and subjected to the severest

environmental loads anticipated in the design brief

• Cargo loads carried by a vessel must be distributed evenly to maintain stability

• When hull integrity is breached, vessels should be designed to remain stable for a specified

period of time to allow for emergency evacuation of personnel

Vessel Environmental Loads

• Canadian Coast Guard vessel “Sir William Alexander” searching for a lost fishing vessel off New
Brunswick in the winter of 2004
• Ice loading is an important design factor for vessels operating in extreme latitudes
• Ice builds up rapidly in bad weather as sea spray freezes on contact with the superstructure
• The vessel can become top heavy as a result with the risk of capsize
 P-36 Semi-Submersible Platform
• An gas explosion in a corner column caused loss of 11 lives and
breached the hull’s integrity

• 165 survivors were successfully evacuated from the platform

and pollution was said to be “minimal”

• Attempts to stabilize the vessel in using 4,100mT of N2 were

ultimately unsuccessful

• The vessel sank in 1,350 m water

• Loss of the platform and associated equipment was estimated

Platform P-36 listing at 250 Roncador Field,
to have cost US$800 million
March 2001
Ballast Control Systems

• It is thought the instability was caused by a

ballast control problem

• In addition, extensive damage was caused to

the topsides by the hurricane

BP’s Thunder Horse listing 200 after Hurricane Dennis

 Metacentric Height and Stability
• The upthrust through B’ and the weight through G is a
couple that tends to rotate the vessel back to an even keel
M is called the metacentre and is the
imaginary point where the line of action of
the upthrust R cuts the original vertical line
through the centre of gravity G

• GM is the metacentric height

• GZ is known as the righting lever

Metacentric Height and Stability
Provided the angle of tilt is small:

x = GM x θ since sin θ = θ in radians

BM is called the metacentric radius

Stable Equilibrium
If M is above G, as shown, a righting x = GM x θ

moment of W x GM x θ is produced Since sin θ = θ in radians

when the vessel is tilted. Therefore

equilibrium is stable and GM is said to
be +ve.
Unstable Equilibrium
If M lies below G, an overturning moment W x GM x Note that if G and B coincide, M will also
θ is produced, equilibrium is unstable and GM is coincide with B and G. This is the
regarded as negative condition known as neutral equilibrium
Unstable Equilibrium
• It is evident that if G were positioned at A and the body was
subjected to a small disturbance, a toppling couple would
apply and cause the body to rotate until eventually G would
lie directly below B

• The position with G at A is said to be unstable

Remote Operated Vehicles
Submerged Bodies in Stable Equilibrium

Deep Water ROV

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs)
• Underwater robots that allow the controller to be located above the water

• Connected to the topside via an umbilical link that houses communications cables, an energy source and
information transfer

• ROVs contains a visual device (camera) in addition to manipulator arms with various degrees of strength,
feedback, and lifting capability

ROVs are commonly used for :

• Changing of wellhead sealing ring gaskets

• Control of some functions on the BOP stack in an emergency

• Retrieval/installation of items on the wellhead or production hardware

• Inspection
ROV Development

• ROVs were introduced in the 1960s mainly for military use

• ROVs have played an important role in subsea engineering since the late 1980s

• Equipment carried includes: – Sonar – Magnetometer – TV and digital cameras – Cutting

equipment – Pumps – Metrology equipment, etc.

• Electrical power is conveyed by umbilical from the mother vessel to power thrusters, manipulator
arms and video etc.

• Depth range to +/- 11000 ft

Work Class ROVs
 ROV Control Station

• This top-side control system for the KYSTDESIGN RO V’s is focussed on providing an
ergonomic, intuitive and efficient working environment

• Single or dual operation stations can easily be configured to individual needs. Operator task
priorities can be switched or and shared between stations during operation
Tether Management Systems
 Types of ROV
• Small Electric Vehicles - Tiniest version of ROVs. These robots simply carry a
single camera and are deployed in waters < 300 m deep

• High Capability Electric ROVs - Able to dive to depths up to 6,000 m deep.

Only equipped with video cameras and are unable to perform many other
tasks because their electricity supply limits

• Work Class Vehicle - Powered electrically and hydraulically, enabling some

subsea work. Generally include a seven-function manipulator and a five-
function grabber. Deployed in the drilling and construction support sector, as
well as pipeline inspection

• Heavy Work Class Vehicle - Capable of working in waters measuring up to

3,000m deep. Has lift capability of 11,000 lbs. Consists of multiple
manipulators and grabbers capable of performing subsea tie-ins and
deepwater installations
Construction Support

• In construction, the ROV units are often an important

part of the operation itself and are required to move
objects into position and observe the construction
process

• ROVs can help make the process easier, equipped with

station keeping functionality they can be used to hold
station in a required position. When tracking and
observing structures, the ROV can be made to maintain
its position relative to that structure.
 ROV Surveying
• ROV surveyor’s standard tools today include acoustic positioning, equipped with
Fibre optics or ring-laser gyros, precise depth sensors and Doppler.

• ROV is also typically operated from a DP vessel so that it can follow it as it takes
surveys.

• Navigation sensors the ROV is equipped with some of the most advanced sensors
which helps in surveying. Video, multibeam and side-scan sonars are used to map
the seabed

• The data from the navigation sensors are used to position and geo-reference and
for accurate maps

• The whole seabed area needs to be surveyed prior to, and after, installation,
pipeline touchdown needs monitoring, lift wires / ropes need attaching or
detaching, valves need turning, pipelines need burial or another form of
protection
 Inspection, Repair and Maintenance
• An ROV crew must manoeuvre the ROV around the facilities being
inspected and the data must be of suffice quality to extract that
information

• Maintaining a stable position and heading is vital for inspection and

maintenance operations

• ROV systems equipped with station keeping can simplify the process of
observing stationary targets for prolonged periods of time

• The ROV will run this route time and time again, each time it will
provide a stable platform for the sensors. The data outputs will be
repeatable and easily compared to those of previous jobs
Other Uses

• Used to recover debris or anything put on sea bed

• Used with torque and other tools to pull in flowlines or control umbilicals and operate valves

• ROV uses pipetrackers and multibeam sonars for pipeline inspections

• Platforms/subsea production facilities OBSROVs fitted with cameras, cathodic protection probes and
other sensors, such as flooded member detection probes which provide a complete analysis regarding
the requirement for preventative/other maintenance

• ROV are also used for cable installation / maintenance, mining or wreck recovery, controlling sledges
and ploughs to trench subsea pipelines and umbilicals or steering fall pipes to fill in trenches or provide
cover with stones.
OFFSHORE RIGS
BRIEF HISTORY
• The offshore oil and gas industry started in
1947
• The first successful offshore well was done by
Kerr-McGee in the GOM off the coast of
Louisiana
• Water depth was 4.6 m
BRIEF HISTORY
• Subsea field development concept was
suggested in the early 1970
• The concept entails placing wellhead and
production equipment on the seabed with
some or all components encapsulated in a
sealed chamber
• The hydrocarbon produced would then
flow from the well to a nearby processing
facilities
BRIEF HISTORY
• Systems that have a well and associated equipment below the water surface are
referred as subsea production systems.
• In the past 40 years, subsea systems have advanced from shallow water, manually
operated systems into systems capable of operating via remote control at water depths
of up to 3,000 meters (10,000 ft).
SUBSEA SYSTEM
A subsea system consists of a subsea completed well, subsea drilling systems, subsea processing, seabed
wellhead, subsea trees, subsea manifolds, subsea tie-in to flowline system and subsea equipment and
control facilities to operate the well
Components of Subsea System:
• Subsea drilling systems
• Subsea X-trees and wellhead systems
• Umbilical and riser systems
• Subsea manifolds and jumper systems
• Tie-in and flowline systems
• Control systems;
• Subsea installation
 OFFSHORE DRILLING
Two basic categories of offshore drilling:

• Platform Rigs –Production platforms

build with drilling rig

• Mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) –

Exclusively designed to drill offshore
location

Types of Drilling Subsea Wells

MOBILE OFFSHORE DRILLING UNITS
Jack up

Semi - Submersible

Drillship
Swamp Barge
JACK UP DRILLING
• First Jack up rig was launched in 1954
• A rig that can drill in 120 meters water in severe metocean
conditions
• It is towed as a floating unit to the chosen drilling location, at
which point the legs are lowered to the seabed
• The platform is then elevated in stages to its operating air gap,
typically with hydraulic motors driving a rack and pinion jacking
system
• Main reason jack-up drilling rigs came into existence was because
the drilling was often interrupted as a result of wind and water
conditions
SEMI SUBMERSIBLE RIGS
• Can operate in water depths of 50 – 3,000 m
• Twin pontoons, submerged well below the surface,
provide most of the buoyancy and enable the unit to
function as a very stable drilling platform
• Designed to withstand winds exceeding 100 knots
and wave heights of 30 meters
• Variable deck loads range from 2,500 sT for early
types to 20,000 sT for the modern “super” rigs.
• Rigs may be kept on station by anchor systems or
by dynamic positioning.
SEMI SUBMERSIBLE RIGS
• Held in location by use of anchors
• Hull is supported by upto 8 cylindrical legs mounted on
pontoons
• After moving the rig on location, it will take on ballast
tanks and fill them with water, thus, submerging the legs
between 50ft – 90ft (15m – 27m)
• Ballast tanks are incorporated into the base of the legs
and pontoons
• After it is filled with water, the rig is in semi-submerged
mode and provides stability during drilling operations

Pontoon Type Semi-Submersible Rig

SEMI SUBMERSIBLE RIGS

Drilling of subsea well from Semi-Submersible

DRILLSHIPS
− Large deck load capacity
− Less stable drilling platform than a semi submersible in
comparable weather conditions
− Guidelineless drilling riser/ BOP systems
− Dynamically positioned for deep water applications
− Can be mobilized relatively quickly over long distances
DRILLSHIPS
• Drills, tests and completes wells in water depths up to
10,000 feet
• Dual-activity drilling technology allows many operations to
be conducted in parallel, rather than sequentially
• Two fully equipped drilling stations carry out these parallel
operations under a massive “dual” derrick
• Note the two crown block motion compensators
• Dynamically positioned with GPS position monitoring
• Large cargo holds provide material storage capacity for as
many as three wells
• This makes drillships ideally suited for operations in areas
remote from oilfield supply bases