In the late seventies offshore pipeline technology began to face increasingly difficult projects, often at the boundary of technical-economic feasibility of the day. In addition, the free fall of oil price in different time periods of the last two decades, caused offshore pipeline industry to specifically direct R&D efforts at reducing investment costs, through improvement of material technology and lay equipment. Advanced engineering analysis became a means of achieving optimum pipeline solutions in both traditional and difficult project scenario, “advanced” because multidisciplinary computer modelling-based on one hand and targetting quantified reliability levels over operational lifetime on the other. This is the main reason why offshore pipeline industry is now proclaiming ready to tackle the challenging ultra deep water trunkline and subsea production projects currently proposed by the energy market.
The scope of this paper is to provide a complete picture of the offshore pipeline technology, in the light of recent and ready-to-come challenges encountered by the ENI Group in ultra deep waters and difficult sea-bottom pipeline projects.
