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Repair of a Buckled Leaking 24” Oil Pipeline

Product/Service:

Subsea Repair

Year:

2009

Location:

Norwegian North Sea

Project Manager:

Christian Knutsen

The 24” oil pipeline from Eldfisk to Ekofisk was found leaking after suffered a wet buckling. The more than 20 years old pipeline was buckled due to significant local seabed subsidence. IK was contacted and a project-taskforce including IK staff and key suppliers was established immediately. The Eldfisk production had been shut down and the line needed to be repaired and put back in operation ASAP.

The repair solution was settled to be a 6 meter long “banana-shaped” ( bended ) clamp that would negotiate the curvature of the buckled pipeline. This clamp was then filled up with grout after installation to secure proper bonding between clamp and the 24” line.

The project was kicked off the 6th of May and the clamp was delivered the 24th in the same month.

The engineering and manufacturing were initiated before the final configuration of the bended pipeline location was defined, and then adjusted when the precise survey dimensions came from the ROV inspection performed.

This concurrent engineering, fabrication and dimensions-settling resulted in a correctly designed and installed repair clamp within a month after the leakage detection. The impact on the environment was close to zero and the Eldfisk was back in operation a month after the line had to be shut-down

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