Abstract
The Girassol field development, offshore Angola in
1,400m of water, has stringent operating requirements due to
flow assurance issues and the need for flexibility. The result
was the selection of new riser and flowline concepts with
numerous qualifications for materials and equipment. This
paper details how these concepts - freestanding riser towers,
insulated flowline bundles and a mid-depth export system met project requirements.
UFL has demonstrated that solutions could be developed in
a short timeframe. These concepts will be used as a reference
for other deepwater developments and while alternative
solutions may be chosen, the challenges will be similar.
UFL system presentation
The umbilical and flowline network, part of the Girassol
development, is made up of the following main systems:
Production system
The production system comprises five production loops.
Thirteen manifolds are installed in daisy chains along these
loops. Up to two production wells can be tied in to
each manifold.
Each of the production loops is made up of two sections:
the production bundle on the seabed bottom and the
production riser integrated within the riser towers connected to
the FPSO.
Production bundles
Each of the five production loops consists of several
production bundles interconnecting the manifolds (refer to the
overall field layout).
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Phase 1
8
18,000m
15,000m
34,000m
8
35
10
Phase 2
3
4,000m
15,000m
20,000m
3
23
24
Design requirements
This section defines the main requirements, which have
had a significant impact on the design of UFL system.
Environmental conditions
TotalFinaElf has operated in the Gulf of Guinea, off West
Africa, for an extended period of time. As a consequence, it
has gained considerable knowledge of the environmental
conditions in this area.
However, this deepwater location off the Angolan coast
has lead to some specific requirements which had to be
addressed.
It should also be mentioned that the engineering of the
UFL components - the riser towers, the export lines and the
umbilicals require specific data, which are not always part of
the standard environmental specifications.
Here after are some of the main environmental conditions
which required special attention by the development team,
particularly considering the structures that were to be included
within the project.
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Deep water
The deep water is a challenge by itself. New ways of
thinking had to be adopted and the usual codes are not always
fully adapted to engineering in such water depths.
For example, the external pressure here is greater than the
internal pressure of pipelines and risers and cannot be
overlooked as it may be on field developments in more
conventional water depths.
The temperature of seawater at the seabed is about 4C and
has an important impact on system with stringent
thermal requirements.
Waves data
Even though wave conditions are well known for this area,
the innovative structures used at Girassol are subject to
fatigue, vortex induced vibration (VIV), etc. Specialised data
is required in order to be able to perform refined calculations.
Current profile
Knowledge of the current profiles is quite important for the
design of slender structures, such as the riser towers, catenary
umbilicals, etc. There was no data available for this water
depth and a data acquisition campaign of one year had to be
carried out at the Girassol location.
The collection and analysis of this data revealed some
interesting features:
- There are current profiles with reverse current.
- Current at sea bottom is not nil. This point was quite
helpful during the ROV operations near sea bottom.
- Etc.
Soil conditions
Soils at this water depth have specific characteristics which
need to be properly appraised to provide the relevant data for
engineering the foundation systems. This was significant for
the Girassol project as a large number of suction anchors were
used to secure structures to the seabed:
- The FPSO and offloading buoy.
- The riser towers.
- The templates of the subsea production system.
(REF: OTC14209.)
The slope of the soil is of importance as it influences the
flow regimes within the pipelines.
Marine life
This does not have a direct impact on the design of the
systems. It is interesting to note that contrary to existing
beliefs, there is marine life at the sea bottom, i.e. fish, octopus,
spider crabs, etc.
Design Review
The Girassol project revealed that there is a significant
amount work required to assess the specific environmental
data necessary for the engineering of structures for a
deepwater development. This is particularly true when the
structures are slender, compliant and subject to fatigue and
Geographical requirements
It was decided to fabricate the riser towers in Lobito in
the south of Angola - and the production bundles at Soyo in
the north of Angola.
The characteristics and capacities of the construction yards
had to be considered when designing the system. The
fabrication phase, which can last several months, imposes
constraints on the design.
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55 bar
5 bar
70 C
<3C
Technical challenges
To fulfill the above requirements, innovative concepts had
to be developed. These concepts required substantial
development, qualification and testing during the engineering,
fabrication and installation phases.
The section hereafter will focus on five main topics, which
have been particularly challenging.
- Field layout flexibility requirement.
- Riser towers.
- Production bundles.
- Export lines.
- Installation.
It has to be noted that on a project like Girassol - with
many innovative concepts - the management of interfaces
between the different packages (FPSO, SPS, UFL) was also a
challenge. This required effort from all parties the operator
and contractors - to cooperate and find acceptable solutions.
Of course in addition to the technical challenges, there
were also contractual and commercial challenges.
Requirements for flexibility
Drilling operations and reservoir studies were performed in
parallel with the engineering and the fabrication of the
different components of the UFL package. As new data and a
better knowledge of the reservoir became available,
modifications to the subsea field layout had to be
implemented.
The modular concept of the UFL network enabled the team
to cope with these modifications without major disturbances to
the overall process.
The different systems of the UFL subsea network are
comprised of a succession of sections of pipelines with the
elements of the subsea production system (SPS).
- Production system: bundle sections in between
manifolds connected to one or two production wells.
- Injection system: pipeline sections with inline tees
installed during j-lay installation.
- Umbilicals system: umbilicals were fabricated in long
lengths and were cut in sections at the end of the
fabrication process in order to fit the required lengths.
In addition, the unit length of the different sections have
been standardized, mainly the production bundles and the
corresponding umbilicals.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Girassol project is a development operated by
TotalFinaElf E&P Angola under a production sharing
agreement awarded by Sonangol to a contractor group
including TotalFinaElf, ExxonMobil, BP, Statoil and Norsk
Hydro. TotalFinaElf would like to thank Sonangol and all of
its partners for their support in the preparation of this paper
and their permission to publish.
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