OFFSHORETechnology Review

Welcome to World Pipelines’ annual Offshore Technology Review. Catch-up on a year’s worth of international offshore oil and gas activity before the whole sector meets at OTC (4 - 7 May, Houston).

Figure 1. Pipeline for Petrobras pre-salt development.

Seal For Life Industries the Netherlands, booth 4207Seal For Life Industries (SFL) is a leading partner to the oil and gas industry with 50 years of experience in providing solutions and services for the life long corrosion protection/prevention and sealing of critical infrastructure both onshore and offshore.

SFL is a committed global partner to the offshore Industry. Its range of STOPAQ viscoelastic systems, Covalence heat shrink sleeve technology and Powercrete solvent free liquid epoxies are specified for numerous and varied applications including, but not limited to, submarine pipeline field joint coatings, protection of subsea and topside structures and tanks, protection under insulation and sealing of j-tubes.

SFL ensures full product installation training is undertaken prior to mobilisation and where required a full turn-key service is offered via the Seal for Life Technologies & Services B.V. division.

2014 was a year of triumph for SFL with project awards and successful implementations in the growth areas of South America, Asia and Australasia. Of particular note, SFL continued to be the partner choice for the field joint coating of the Petrobras pre-salt pipeline developments of Guara Lula-NE, Cabiunas, Cernambi and Iracema Sul, located in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil. These developments required a polypropylene based field joint coating for three layer polypropylene (3LPP) line coated pipe, which had to resist the thermo-mechanical forces associated with pipelay depths of 2200 m, shore pull-in via horizontal directional drilling and to perform at operating conditions for a design life of 30 years. The company’s polypropylene based heat shrink sleeve technology, Covalence HTLP-PP, was specified and installed following extensive testing by the International EPCI offshore contractor Saipem and subsequent approval from Petrobras. In addition to the supply of the materials for the Cabiunas pipeline project, SFL Services provided in excess of 200 man days of support to the contractors offshore operations and for onshore installation services related to the integration of buckle arrestors, jumpers and spool fabrications.

2015 continues the growth trend with implementation of numerous field joint coating projects around the globe, such as Total Vega (offshore Tierra del Fuego, Argentina), PV Gas NCS2 (offshore Vietnam) and Inpex Ichthys (Offshore Australia). In January, SFL was busy with the mobilisation of the Inpex Ichthys project providing installation training for its specified 3 layer polyethylene heat shrink technology, Covalence HTLP80, and associated production support services aboard the Saipem Castorone vessel for the 718 km section of the 42 in. OD pipeline.

Figure 2. J-lay pipelay.

Offshore industry 2015 prediction“Despite the recent falls in oil price and some geopolitical issues we expect to have a good year in 2015”, commented Neil Gill, SFL Global Offshore Business Director. “This year we will commercialise Kelvin, our innovative automatic heat shrink technology and thus expect further uptake in our installation services. Our development focus to ‘seal for life’ and simplicity in installation, via low temperature Covalence preheat and STOPAQ viscoelastic technologies, will continue to drive our momentum forward”.

REPRINTED FROM OFFSHORE Technology Review / 2015

OFFSHORETechnology Review

Figure 4. Final offshore FJC application.

Figure 3. Pipeline for Petrobras pre-salt

development.