Platforms Installation In Soft Soil (Pin Piles Technique) Available to Purchase

Baltim gas field in the Mediterranean Sea is considered as one of the promising fields in Egypt. The need to develop Baltim field was urgent in order to cover the local gas demands in Egypt, and also to reinforce the efforts spent for gas exporting from Egypt to the international market. The major problem found during the feasibility study phase of the field; was that the nature of seabed soil was very soft and with low bearing capacity. This kind of soil is not suitable to support traditional platforms construction/installation techniques. This challenge encouraged Petrobel together with the share holder ENI-Agip to search feasible technical solutions to have a new design for installing off-shore platforms in soft soil. These efforts have produced new designs and techniques to overcome the problem of installing off-shore platform in soft soil. The new design was simply, to install the jacket on four pin piles, with suitable clearance from sea bed to avoid jacket settlement if applying the traditional mud mat technique. The objective of this paper is to present the new design criteria for pin piles technique, execution procedures and results of applying such new technique as well.