Offshore staff
HOUSTON– Balmoral Offshore Engineering has introduced two additions to its drill riser buoyancy portfolio at the Offshore Technology Conference. The new materials, Durafloat Superlite and Durafloat Superlite-X, are rated to operating depths of 15,000 ft (4,572 m); typically 3,000-5,000 ft (914-1,524 m) deeper than industry-standard drill riser buoyancy.
Drill riser buoyancy provides ‘uplift’ by effectively decreasing the submerged weight of the steel riser joints, which run between the drilling vessel and the BOP on the seabed.
The syntactic foams are an extension to the company’s existing Durafloat range and were developed by the technical and engineering teams in Aberdeen as part of a six-figure R&D investment program. The teams were tasked with developing the lighter syntactic material for use at operational extremes of 15,000 ft.
Technical director Dr. Bob Oram said: “Having successfully developed our range of Durafloat riser buoyancy to working depths of 12,000 ft (3,658 m) it became clear, as the industry moves into ever-deeper waters, that further product development was required. However, the essential increase in mechanical performance demanded to operate at these depths cannot be accompanied by a reduction in available buoyancy, and so foam density reduction was targeted alongside mechanical performance improvement.”
4/30/2012
