A pressing need in the world offshore industry throughout the next decade is felt to be the design, safety assessment and repair/rehabilitation of offshore pipelines, both for new and existing installations. A cooperative international workshop was therefore held, in one of the centers of the world pipeline activity, in order to facilitate improved understanding and safety assessment of offshore pipeline safety. The overall purpose was to discuss current practice, progress, desirable future activities and key future directions in the field of offshore design and management, as well as safe practice in the offshore pipeline industry. It was also desired to bring together the various parties active in the field of offshore pipelines, to form a written record of the major issues at the present time, and to provide definition of areas for management and research focus.

The international steering committee identified eight special topics as being of particular importance, and these were as follows:

1. Design, analysis and installation issues for integrity,
2. Evaluation of system integrity, limit state design issues, reliability assessment,
3. Internal monitoring (pigging, coupons, nondestructive testing, etc.),
4. External surveillance (divers, remotely operated vehicles, acoustic location, etc.),
5. Routine operation & maintenance issues (including corrosion control and leak detection),
6. Abnormal operations, emergency and storm response, underwater morphology,
7. Repair & rehabilitation problems,
8. Deep water considerations design, inspection, repair and rehabilitation.

Participation included representatives of the gas and petroleum industry, consulting firms, offshore contractors, manufacturers and fabricators, government agencies, and academic and research institutions from many countries. Keynote addresses were also invited from prominent industry and government figures. Meetings were then held in separate working groups, to discuss each of the above special topics in more detail.

This report provides the written record of the invited papers and the subsequent results and conclusions of each of the working groups, as well as some independent contributions. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of the sponsors, the editor, or the individual working group chairmen. These proceedings are intended primarily to document the presentations and discussions that took place at this workshop, for the benefit of the engineering community at large.

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Last Updated: 07/28/2008, 02:46 PM