Hydraulic and earth engineering – Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying – retrieving,... – Submerging – raising – or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
Reexamination Certificate
1996-03-26
2001-01-30
Lillis, Eileen Dunn (Department: 3673)
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying, retrieving,...
Submerging, raising, or manipulating line of pipe or cable...
C405S158000, C405S166000, C405S170000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06179523
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for installing an offshore pipeline. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for installing a pipe-in-pipe flowline system configured to provide direct electric resistance heating along the length of an extended subsea pipeline.
Offshore hydrocarbon recovery operations are increasingly pressing into deeper water and more remote locations. Here it is very expensive to provide surface facilities and it is desirable to minimize these requirements. Often satellite wells are completed subsea and are tied to remote platforms through extended subsea pipelines as a means to reduce the production cost. Even these platforms serving as central hubs in the offshore infrastructure are provided only the minimal facilities required for collecting and partially treating the well fluids before exporting them toward onshore facilities through yet more subsea pipelines.
The subsea pipelines crucial to this infrastructure prove a weak link as they are subject to plugging with hydrates or with paraffin deposition. Both hydrates and paraffins are of limited trouble at the pressures and temperatures experienced at the producing well, but can cause serious plugging problems when cooled to lower temperatures during pipeline transport. Further, heavier crude oils may exhibit fluid viscosity problems as the oil cools. A system for direct electric pipeline heating and methods of protecting pipelines from viscosity problems, hydrate formation and paraffin deposition have been devised to keep this infrastructure operational. This protection, though, is predicated on the installation of a pipe-in-pipe flowline with features appropriate for transmitting electrical power through the pipeline so as to heat the pipeline through electrical resistance and, in some circumstances, to drive electrical devices remote from the surface facilities.
Thus, there is a clear need for installation techniques appropriate for installing such a pipe-in-pipe flowline in long lengths for deepwater subsea pipeline service.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Toward providing these and other advantages, the present invention is a method for installing an offshore pipeline in which the inner and outer pipes are structurally connected at a terminal end of a pipe-in-pipe flowline and centralizers are placed in the annulus to provide lateral support and maintain concentricity between the two pipes, and to prevent buckling of the inner pipe. The working end of the pipeline is suspended under construction in a substantially vertical position within slips at the weld floor of a J-lay installation barge and sections of inner and outer pipe are added. Inner pipe is added by sections by grasping and orienting the section of inner pipe to a vertical position and the section is brought into abutting position with the inner pipe at the working end of the pipeline under construction, welded in place, and the weld is coated with an arc resistant material. Sections of outer pipe are added by grasping and reorienting to a vertical orientation, sliding the section down over the section of inner pipe just welded in place, bringing the section of outer pipe into abutting position with the working end of the pipeline under construction and welding it into place. The working end of the pipeline is then advanced through the slips to bring the end of the section of outer pipe added adjacent the weld floor and the foregoing steps are repeated as necessary to add additional sections of inner and outer pipe to complete the pipeline.
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