Session: 04-02-02 Rigid Risers II

Paper Number: 105131

105131 - Life Extension of Risers and Engineering Criticality Assessment 

Considering the current drive towards energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables for environmental reasons, extending the service life of existing oil and gas offshore production structures beyond their original design life is on the rise as opposed to investing billions of dollars building new structures.  Such structures typically include the floating platform, topside, subsurface, subsea, moorings, risers, flowlines, pipelines, and umbilicals.  As far as risers are concerned, industry codes and standards and government regulations for the official requirements of life extension are yet to be issued, albeit some are in the works.  The general requirements for risers are essentially to be fit for service for the intended period of life extension utilizing the latest available codes, standards, and Metocean criteria at the time life extension is considered.  This also includes taking into account the actual conditions of the risers as verified by inspection and the history of the risers as documented through the integrity management program.  The fitness for service assessment consists typically of assessment of strength, S-N fatigue from all contributing sources, interference with other risers, umbilicals, or objects, flow assurance, cathodic protection, etc.  A less straight forward issue of life extension of risers is engineering criticality assessment (ECA).  This paper discusses the different aspects of life extension of risers and perspectives on ECA in particular and provides recommendations.

Presenting Author: Ghiath (Guy) Mansour ARTIFEX ENGINEERING, INC.

Presenting Author Biography: Guy Mansour has over 20 years of experience in riser systems' design, fatigue testing, package engineering, procurement, delivery, and CVA.

Guy is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas, USA and has a Ph.D. in Civil engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and is the inventor of a new tubular end connection to improve the fatigue performance of risers and welded tubular connections in general.

Guy is serving on the API Subcommittee 2 Task Group to update the risers design code API RP 2RD to the 3rd Ed.

Authors:

Ghiath (Guy) Mansour ARTIFEX ENGINEERING, INC.