The demand for energy is steadily increasing and, at least for the coming decades, the world has to rely on oil and gas to address this need. Most of the easiest accessible offshore petroleum reservoirs have been discovered and a great part developed over the last six decades. Thus, development of new oil and gas fields faces a lot of challenges as most of them are in remote areas, in deep waters and/or in areas with extreme environments like the Arctic region. One of the major trends in the offshore petroleum industry points towards deeper waters (e.g. outside West Africa, the Brazilian Pre-Salt developments and in the Gulf of Mexico). This trend also includes increased use of subsea installations instead of platforms, more subsea processing and increased use of pipelines to transport the hydrocarbons to shore or into a pipeline grid. This paper addresses some of the challenges pipeline design, installation and operation may face in deep and ultra-deep waters. The main design challenge is related to the high external pressure that may cause collapse of the pipeline. This potential failure mode is normally dealt with by increasing the pipe wall thickness, but at ultra-deep water depths this may require a very thick walled pipe that becomes very costly, difficult to manufacture and hard to install due to its weight. One approach to overcome this is to improve some of the parameters that determine the collapse resistance by an improved manufacturing process. Other approaches are to ensure a minimum internal pressure is maintained in the pipeline during all phases, or to install a buoyant pipeline that is anchored at a moderate water depth rather that laying on the sea bed.

The present paper describes a reliability-based design procedure against upheaval buckling of rock or soil-covered pipelines. The failure mode considered is “snap-through” buckling. The study is performed using state-of-the-art design methodologies, including an assessment of all known uncertainties related to the load and capacity, measurements, surveys, and confidence in the applied models. A response surface technique is applied within the level III reliability analysis. Target safety levels are discussed for both SLS and ULS conditions, and a case-specific reliability-based calibration study is performed in order to derive a consistent design format.

There have been recent incidents associated with cracking and leaks in C-Mn line pipe steels exposed to high H2S service. The incidents led to pipeline replacement with very expensive CRA clad pipeline causing substantial project delays and project cost escalations. The incidents occurred when TMCP ACC steels were exposed to severe Region 3 environment as per domain diagram in NACE MR0175 (high partial pressure of H2S). The leaks were associated with longitudinal cracking which initiated at hard zones present on the parent pipe internal surface, and possibly also in girth welds. The hard spots were observed to be contained within a very shallow depth of the ID surface of the pipe. The pipe microstructure beyond the thin layer of the hard zones at the ID surface did not contain hard material. However, the cracks propagated through the parent pipe normal microstructure in the through thickness direction. Several of the operators are now concerned and uncertain on how to ensure the integrity of C-Mn pipelines in similar severe sour environments. Some operators have therefore introduced more stringent requirements for sour environment resulting in significant challenges to manufacture of line pipes and qualification of welding procedures that meet these new requirements. We also see different requirements being imposed by different operators. The use of CRA, clad/lined pipes or other exotic materials can solve the challenges, but are very expensive and can significantly reduce margins and make several sour service projects less viable. Several R&D institutions have already started to study the phenomena. DNV GL have also initiated a broad JIP that will look into the challenges, with the objective of developing an industry guideline for use of C-Mn line pipe for high H2S service. This paper will give background on the challenges associated with using C-Mn steel in high H2S service, describe the various uncertainties in detail, and describe how the JIP will address the challenges on a broad basis.

In South America, the recent fields discovered in the pre-salt area are located more than 300km away from the coast, which makes exploring and especially the transportation of associated gas a major challenge in the coming years. Several issues are related to this problem: • distance to shore (more than 300 km) and ultra-deepwater (more than 2000 m); • vessel time and capacity (reduced number of boats/offshore units with capacity to install pipelines in deepwater); • increasing demand for these vessels worldwide; • flaring restrictions in accordance with Brazilian National Petroleum Agency (ANP). Deepwater pipelines have traditionally been built using very thick pipe walls, requiring large quantities of steel and special equipment for milling and pipe laying. This paper presents an innovative gas transportation concept for long distance in ultra-deep waters (X-Stream Pipeline Concept). A way to potentially reduce the required wall thickness of deep water pipelines by controlling in the differential pressure across the pipe wall (and thus allowing for a reduction in the pipeline wall thickness). This concept is also applicable in other deepwater exploratory frontiers, for instance: Gulf of Mexico and West Africa.

DNV-RP-F108 [1] was first issued in 2006. The Recommended Practice was developed to provide guidance on testing and analyses for fracture control of pipeline girth welds subjected to cyclic plastic deformation, e.g. during installation by the reeling method, but also for other situations where pipelines may be subjected to large plastic strains. The Recommended Practice was based upon a Project Guideline developed within the Joint Industry Project “Fracture Control for Installation Methods Introducing Cyclic Plastic Strain - Development of Guidelines for Reeling of Pipelines”. The new revision is based on the extensive experience and knowledge gained over the years use of the previous versions, as well as new knowledge from recent R&D projects. The main content of Appendix A of DNV-OS-F101 (now DNVGL-ST-F101) [2] have been transferred to DNVGL-RP-F108. Only the requirements relative to ECA and testing have been retained in DNVGL-ST-F101 [2]. The new revision has got a new number and new title, i.e. DNVGL-RP-F108, “Assessment of Flaws in Pipeline and Riser Girth Welds”. This paper lists the fundamental changes made in the new RP from the old Appendix A of the previous DNV-OS-F101 and discusses some of the changes, although within this paper it is not possible to cover all changes. The focus is on clarification of use of S-N versus the fracture mechanics approach for fatigue life computation, classification of fatigue sensitive welds, calculations of more accurate crack driving force by re-introduction of the plate solution, for which a new Lr,max (plastic collapse) calculation and a modified way to account for residual stresses have been specified. The RP presents new assessment procedures pertaining to use of finite element analyses for fracture mechanics assessments. A unique feature of the new RP is the guidance on sour service testing and assessments included in the Appendix C of the document to support pipeline/riser ECAs to develop flaw acceptance criteria for NDT.