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Image: Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project/Optical Metrology Services |
Optical Metrology Services (OMS) completed a series of pipe measurement surveys for the Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project – the largest subsea oil and gas project in the world.
The scope of work involved end dimensioning, numbering and color banding of deepsea, fatigue-critical flowline pipe, steel catenary risers (SCR) and long seam welded line pipe.
Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project involves the development of six of the 12 fields discovered at block 32, around 260km offshore Luanda in Angola.
The project is located in an 800sq km site in the central and southeast part of the block. The water depth at this location ranges from 1400-1900m.
The project involves the drilling of 59 subsea wells, which will be connected via 300km of subsea pipelines to two floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels. Associated gas from the fields will be transferred to the Angola liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Soyo. Production is expected to start in 2017, with production capacity expected to be 230,000 b/d.
OMS was contracted to perform onshore pipe end dimensioning of more than 10,000 pipe ends. The work was carried out in three separate mobilizations. Five OMS engineers were deployed for 10 weeks at the Bredero Shaw pipe yard in Batam Island, Indonesia, to measure more than 9000 pipe ends. In addition, two OMS engineers were deployed for two weeks at the Socotherm pipe facility in Sicily, where an additional 750 pipe ends were measured. The pipe sizes measured were a mix of 10in, 12in, 14in and 16in in diameter.
OMS also deployed four engineers for two weeks in Brazil, where an additional 800 pipe ends were measured. These were 18in diameter subsea arc welded line (SAWL) pipes.
For end dimensioning, OMS utilized its own AutoTool laser measurement tool, which is capable of recording more than 2,000 internal and external measurements around each pipe end in less than 20 seconds. This tool is accurate to 0.05mm and enables OMS staff to measure hundreds of pipe ends in a single shift. The AutoTool is a non-contact laser-based measurement system that is provided to the customer as a service together with trained operators.
The scope involved measuring, numbering and color banding of pipe ends, including the linking of pipe numbers with pipe measurement files.