Tahiti project pushes riser monitoring to a new level
A comprehensive riser and flowline monitoring (RFM) contract was awarded to 2H Offshore Inc., an Acteon company, for Chevron’s Tahiti project. The RFM system design life requirement of 10 years is an industry first, and all the subsea sensors, electronics systems, and communication cables are configured with double redundancy.
2H will provide riser monitoring instrumentation for production riser hang-off and touchdown regions, and strain and motion measurements. The flowline monitoring system will measure flowline buckling shape, local temperature, and hoop and axial strain.
“Breaking down an involved system into simple manageable blocks ensures integration of an RFM system with complex offshore project development,” says Metin Karayaka, Chevron RFM project coordinator. “Close cooperation with Tahiti’s integrated project team enabled us to optimize the RFM system for robustness and reliability.”
The 2H contract involves system design, equipment supply, integration, and deployment, and is the latest generation of online riser monitoring systems. The riser monitoring system was configured for analytically predicted riser response and data processing. Transducer’s specification and location were preceded by detailed 2H studies to ensure the monitoring objectives were met. These objectives include capturing riser vortex induced vibration (VIV) response, wave and current response, and information on riser-to-seabed interaction.
The high tech online steel catenary riser’s (SCR) monitoring system gathers riser response information at 10 Hz frequency, processes it in real-time, and provides feedback to the Tahiti controls systems.
