Subsea 7 Limited

Robert Dicken

Philip Derek Brown

David Charles Murray

Keith Scott Garden

Edward Harvey Jamieson

Martin Alexander Goodlad

A bundle section of a subsea pipeline bundle has a rigid carrier pipe having an end closed by a transverse bulkhead and one or more fluid conduits in fluid communication with an opening that penetrates the bulkhead. Fluid coupling formations such as a spigot or a recess on an outer face of the bulkhead surround the opening. Leak-tight coupling between successive fluid conduits is effected when the bulkheads of two such bundle sections are brought together. This forces together opposed complementary fluid coupling formations of the bulkheads. The bulkheads connect the adjoining bundle sections fluidly and mechanically.

Bundle section of a pipe bundle for subsea installation

A method for connecting sections of a multi-bore structure in water comprises connecting the sections to bring corresponding bores of the sections into mutual alignment while those bores are each closed by a plug that excludes the water from the bores. Then, with the sections connected and the corresponding bores sealed together in fluid communication with each other, the plugs are flushed away in a flushing fluid that flows along the communicating bores.

Connecting multi-bore structures in water

A towable pipeline bundle for installation underwater at a subsea oil or gas production site has two or more bundled elongate elements, at least one of which is a flowline for carrying production fluid along the bundle. A rigid buoyancy pipe of polymer-composite material extends along and supports the bundled elongate elements. The buoyancy pipe has an internal buoyancy chamber and at least one port for introducing fluid into the buoyancy chamber. The buoyancy pipe is arranged to have positive buoyancy in seawater when its buoyancy chamber contains a fluid less dense than seawater. In this way, the buoyancy pipe confers substantially neutral buoyancy on a towable unit comprising the bundle. The unit can then be towed in mid-water to the production site and lowered there onto the seabed.

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Stonehaven, United Kingdom

Robert Dicken