Offshore Engineering

The practical interest in the construction and further development of the different offshore structures is quite rapidly increasing today because of the rising demand for the hydrocarbons making the offshore exploration and production of oil and gas much more attractive from the commercial viewpoint. Meanwhile, the offshore wind farms and wave/current/tidal energy systems, i.e. all recently introduced systems generating the renewable energy are of great interest, as well.

All of these offshore structures are always subject to the significant geohazards and that's why they always required properly designed and constructed foundations suiting their structural weight, with the applied loads duly considered. The present work provides the core technical design skills commonly required for this subject. The book is pretty self-contained, and such approach has made it useful as a comprehensive primer book even for the beginners; it will also be good when used by the students as a course book.

The readers are expected to possess at least minimum idea of the soil mechanics and very basic engineering skills. Note that the third part is intended to provide the overview of major points plus their application in offshore engineering, for the novices...

The main outcome of this informative volume has been seriously influenced by the active engagement of the marine/terrestrial mineral exploration activities during the last decades. Subject exploration works were commenced in 1973 when the author of this book participated in the manganese nodule exploration. The content of the title has been laid out in the following way - it starts with the preface with the main body of the document consisting of eight major chapters supplemented with three appendices.

First of all, the fundamental principles of the exploration have been explained in the introductory section. Then, there is a short yet comprehensive technical description of the research ships and submersibles. The next chapters outline the main marine geophysical exploration methods and data evaluation procedures, followed by the several case stories related to the marine mineral exploration; in addition, the current status of the relevant laws and regulations concerning the exploration of marine minerals is addressed.

There might be some slight overlap of the content of different parts of this book; note, however, that it is something very difficult to be prevented taking into account the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject and also the fact that the contributions were made by the many specialists from different fields and countries.

The official training course developed by the specialists of the Malaysian Technological University. The main content of this training course is arranged in seven major sections. The first section is purely introductory and provides students with the general information about the drilling teams and functions of the drilling engineer. The next section describes the major types of the drilling rigs, while the third section explains in detail what exactly the rotary drilling is.

The remaining sections of the course are dedicated to the well control, established drilling procedure, directional drilling, and commonly experienced drilling problems. The drilling teams usually comprise of the contractor's personnel, representatives of the operating company, and service and supply companies. The main functions of the drilling engineers include preparation of the drilling programs, and working with the geologists on logging program plus with the other specialists including mud engineers, service/supply personnel, directional engineers etc.

All of the drilling rigs have more or less same basic components; offshore drilling rigs may be bottom-supported, semi-submersible or fully floating. The booklet will show the readers the correct sequence of drilling operations on land and offshore, provide detailed explanations of different types of rigs and their technical features, explain the drilling process itself and give other useful information.

The offshore industry is very complex - it means that any miscommunication within the industry may lead to the serious frustration, result in the downtime and may even trigger the equipment failure and breakdown. The main intention of the authors of the present Dictionary was to provide all players of the offshore industry with the reference source that would be used for elimination of these potentially costly miscommunications and provide a sort of a common ground for the better and more effective discourse.

It is expected to serve as the essential technical resource for all professionals and engineers of the oil and gas as well as petrochemical industries; however, the content of the Dictionary will also of great practical interest for the students and scientists. The Dictionary defines more than five thousand terms related to the technology and commerce and encompassing a wide variety of the fields including exploration and production of hydrocarbons, their processing and refining, transportation, management and financial matters, and, of course, safety issues.

The book covers literally all aspects starting from the fundamental engineering principles and up to the very latest drilling technology and their real-life applications. All articles have been arranged in alphabetical order for easier and quicker reference...

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...