Modern Subsea Hot Tapping – What's New?

15 November 2007 Aberdeen Branch Evening Meeting

Sponsored by National Hyperbaric Centre

Flyer

'Hot Tapping' is the technique used to connect a branch pipe into, usually, a main trunk line that is still in full-flow condition, i.e. still 'hot'. Clearly unless great skill and competence is used, there is potential for a major incident. The presentations explain the preparation and qualification of diving personnel, the techniques employed and lessons learnt, along with future developments.

Presentations

David Smith, Managing Director, National Hyperbaric Centre Ltd

The NHC has hosted a number of Hot Tap projects for various contracting companies and presented overall capabilities, experiences and lessons learnt during these major projects.

Subsea Hot Tapping – the State of the Art

Derek Birnie, Project Manager Northern Europe and Canada, Acergy

This presentation is on the manual and remote hot tapping methods developed and refined by Acergy. Areas covered include: design, site preparation, qualification of hyperbaric weld procedures and welders, preheat application and control, pressure isolation, NDE methods, tapping methods, risk management. Details of the recent hot tap carried out to connect Statoil's Tampen Linked Pipeline into Shell's Flags Trunk Line are presented as illustrations of these, as are details of the remote system recently developed, built, tested, and qualified to Statoil specification for its Pipeline Repair System.

Dan Vu, Senior Consultant Pipeline Integrity Management, Advantica Group

Through industry funded programme, grouted tee technology has recently developed successfully for live intervention on subsea pipelines. This presentation provides background of this development and the technical benefits of applying it.