Heidrun TLP titanium drilling riser system

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:433946

Sauer, C W; Sexton, J B; Sokoll, R E; Thornton, J M ^[1]

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1. Conoco Norway Inc., Oslo (Norway)

The Heidrun TLP drilling riser system has been designed and fabricated using a titanium alloy for the riser pipe body and flanges, the booster line and the fasteners. This is the first use of this material in this application. The process described in this paper includes several engineering stages, a materials qualification and testing stage and the fabrication stage, all of which took place over a four and one half year period. The use of titanium for the riser allowed the optimization of associated components of the system; the tensioners, the subsea wellhead and drilling connector and the surface handling systems which resulted in considerable weight and cost savings to the Heidrun Project. At the time of this writing the riser has not been used in service from the TLP, but has been used in both factory acceptance testing of the various components and through an extensive system integration testing program which involved both surface and subsea trials. This paper describes these processes and highlights several design innovations and key learnings about the use of titanium in an offshore drilling environment.

• OSTI ID: 433946
• Report Number(s): CONF-960525--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
03 NATURAL GAS
42 ENGINEERING
ATLANTIC OCEAN
DESIGN
MARINE RISERS
MATERIALS TESTING
NATURAL GAS FIELDS
NORWAY
OFFSHORE PLATFORMS
OIL FIELDS
RESERVOIR ENGINEERING
WELL DRILLING