Resource Development in Arctic Regions

Abstract

Hydrocarbon basins in global arctic regions hold significant resources with economic potential to support an array of economic sectors including energy, transportation, petrochemical, agricultural, and manufacturing industries. Due to the harsh physical environment, northern and arctic regions present significant technical and logistical challenges that influence the development of engineering solutions through the design process and may affect the project viability and sanction with respect to technical or economic factors. One of the more significant hazards and extreme loading events encountered is ice gouging due to the interaction of ice features with the seabed subject to environmental driving forces. Trenching and pipeline burial is viewed as one of the most effective mitigation techniques used to promote pipeline serviceability and reduce the risk of pipeline damage; however, there are limitations and constraints with current technologies with respect to the maximum trenching depth and production rates that affect project logistics and economic risk. In addition, there are other physical environmental factors that present challenges including the short open water season, low temperatures, and presence of special terrain characteristics (e.g., hardpan, permafrost, massive ground ice). Current practice used to define system demand (i.e., geotechnical loads) and system capacity (i.e., pipeline mechanical performance) has limitations due to inherent uncertainties with the statistics of physical data sets, experimental techniques, and engineering models used in the analysis. Advancements in computational methods have provided improved engineering tools to analyze these complex nonlinear processes with probabilistic methods providing an objective framework to assess design options with respect to technical, economic, and environmental criteria that meet specified target safety levels. Consideration of cumulative effects, climate change, and sustainability factors add an additional layer of complexity to the engineering framework in terms of social context and political values.