Offshore Engineering

The publication with quite self-explanatory title. The content of this officially released document provides the readers with the results of the investigation of one of the most disastrous and tragic happenings of the offshore industry of all times. The famous blowout of the Macondo well took place on 20 April 2010 and cost eleven human lives and caused the Deepwater Horizon offshore floating drilling rig to sink.

Another consequence was the spillage of over four million barrels of the crude oil directly into the Mexican Gulf causing the huge environmental impact. Subject oil spill has resulted in the disruption of the economic systems of the whole region, huge damages to the fisheries and habitats... It has also highlighted the existing risks of the deepwater well drilling during the oil and gas exploration considered one of the latest frontiers in the energy supply of the country.

Soon after the disaster, President appointed the Commission for its investigation and analysis of all causes and effects; subject Commission consisted of seven expert members and was suggested to provide the valuable recommendations for minimization of the risks in the future. The report produces by this Commission is contained in the pages of this document and will be greatly interest not only to the professionals of the offshore industry but even to the general reader.

This book has been deservedly found to be a must-have one for all project managers as well as the commissioning managers together with all people willing to reach these positions. The main emphasis has been placed by the author on the areas with the greatest influence when the project is in FEED, standing for the front end engineering design phase, providing the structure to the activities that the commissioning managers shall see executed at each phase of the project life-cycle and also suggesting some of the KPIs, standing for the key performance indicators related to the commissioning managers.

The authors of the volume have managed to reach the declared goals taking the subject objectively, looking not only from the owner's or contractor's perspectives. Overall, the present book shall be treated as the excellent source embracing the whole subject not tackled in any of the previously published works. The combined efforts of the authors have eventually resulted in this good practical handbook covering the methodology as well as the process and technical details of the chemical and process plant commissioning. The information contained in this book together with the presentation scheme and technical data make this volume unique and very popular.

The drilling and production conducted offshore have always been considered a highly complicated and also very technically challenging operations. With the rapid increase in the drilling activities seen in the late seventeens and early eighteens the demand for much more technically qualified and specialized personnel have appeared- there was a demand for the people who could properly design and execute all the phases of both drilling and production processes.

However, it has become very difficult for the people to get a proper general technical overview of the complete scope of the activities. The main intention of the present book it to try and present all interested readers with the detailed examination of the specialized modern techniques together with the designs and materials, providing the participants of the offshore industry with the comprehensive overview of drilling/production operations conducted offshore.

Nowadays, taking into account the constantly increasing demand for the oil, the offshore drilling and production activities concentrate in the increasingly difficult--to-access areas. The offshore oil wells are not considered novelties any more. In addition, the future technical developments in the field of oil recovery offshore will definitely bring even more changes o the production sciences that shall be taken into consideration by the designers...

Corrosion is something generally accepted by all participants of the offshore industry as the critically important issue. This report is mainly dealing with the technical developments of the top-level corrosion strategy specifically worked out for all topside processing facilities located offshore.

The associated project has been originally conceived as a fundamental and route study conducted to establish the basic requirements relating to the assessment/management of the corrosion risks related to the production of the oilfields and equipment used for the transportation of the oil. The underlying objective throughout this work was proper identification of requirements for the guidelines combining the best industry practices from the HSE, corrosion and also the asset integrity management.

The approach adopted tasks consider the relevant offshore regulations together with the risk control systems. The main summary of this work was that development of the corrosion risk guidelines was quite feasible and would definitely be welcomed by the offshore industry. Corrosion itself is a serious life-limiting factor causing the deterioration of the offshore structures by general wastage and pitting/cracking leading directly to the loss of containment of the processing fluids...

Production of both oil and gas offshore involves the most sophisticated engineering projects and is considered a prime source of income for many countries and commercial entities. It shall be noted that the risks of the major offshore accidents demonstrated by such the famous disasters such as the Piper Alpha, Alexander Kielland, Ocean Ranger and Sleipner A are also involved.

Subject accidents are representing the ultimate way in which the offshore engineering projects could go wrong. Among such accidents we would note the human death and suffering, environment pollution and commercial problems. The QRA, standing for the quantitative risk assessment, addressed in this publication, is a new technique cutting across the traditional divisions of engineering, applying to all of them. Most of the textbooks addressing this technique are relating to the fields on chemical/nuclear engineering and currently there is no any standard reference volumes that would provide the proper guidance on the offshore risk assessment.

The objective of this guide is to give an introduction to the QRA as applied to the offshore industry, aiming to introduce all most important aspects of the QRA and describing the good contemporary practice in offshore QRA, including selection of the data and more or less simple analytical techniques to be used...

Nowadays, the offshore deep water oil wells are drilled to the greater and greater depth and the designers and engineers of the pipelines are confronted with the absolutely new technical problems, accordingly. Such problems commonly include the depth of the water, ocean currents, weather conditions, reliability of the equipment and, of course, the accessibility of the wells.

The content of this book is mainly based on the authors' thirty years practical experience in the offshore industry. The authors of the book have provided readers with the comprehensive coverage of the whole spectrum of the related subjects in this discipline, starting from the installation of pipes and selection of the routing and planning of works up to the design and construction of pipelines, together with their installation in various underwater environments around the globe.

This publication shall definitely be treated as a must-have and all-inclusive volume covering all recent technical breakthroughs in welding, corrosion prevention and inspection of pipelines, offering all interested readers a very easy-to-understand guidance to the design codes which are recognized and followed in many countries including US, UK, Norway and others. The reader will gain all required expert coverage of these codes and understand how to conduct a proper design of the pipelines and risers...

Obviously, the design and construction of the offshore structures capable of withstanding unique and extreme challenges existing there in subsea operation is very complex task. Taking into account that the wells drilled in the deep waters reach greater depths, the engineers involved in the design process, are normally confronted with numerous problems including ocean currents and water depth, harsh weather conditions and reliability of the equipment used, accessibility of the well etc.

The present handbook shall be treated as a remarkably definitive and comprehensive reference to be used by the engineers for the design, analysis and installation of the offshore structures. The book will provide them with an expert guidance to the major processes and technologies as well as the equipment comprising modern offshore installations, answering all crucial questions in a very clear language and covering the full spectrum of subjects.

The content is based on the thirty years of practical experience of the authors. We can say that all important issues of the floating and fixed offshore platforms have been addressed in a single volume providing an excellent overview of the subject.