Qualification of Low Cost Buoyancy LCB for Deepwater Towed Bundle Applications

Abstract

Since Deepwater field developments started around year 2000, Deepwater Buoyancy has been dominated by syntactic foam and has not evolved significantly since then. Some Deepwater applications like towed Bundle, Steel Lazy Wave riser and Hybrid Riser towers require large amounts of it, both for temporary (installation aids) use and permanent use, becoming a significant part of the cost associated to those systems. In parallel, the present market conditions is pushing Oil companies to develop new technologies and to promote cost reduction initiatives. In this context, Subsea7 and Matrix, Composites & Engineering have developed a new concept of buoyancy, so called low cost buoyancy. This paper will present the Buoyancy concept, will provide insight on the qualification tests successfully passed, and present typical application where the low cost buoyancy is intended to be used.