Handle

With Care
High Quality Welding
and Challenging
Installation - 4,300 feet
Under the Sea

The Tahiti deepwater field development in the Gulf of

Mexico is one of Chevrons major growth prospects.
Similar to other major deepwater fields under
development, the Tahiti reservoir lies beneath a massive
salt canopy that begins approximately 100 miles off
the eastern tip of Louisiana and extends to the Texas
coast. The high pressures and temperatures associated
with reservoirs that extend to 28,000 feet below sea
level, coupled with water depths ranging from 4,000
to 4,300 feet, create a significant challenge for the
construction and installation of the subsea equipment
necessary to enable safe and reliable production.

cheduled to come online in the third quarter of

2009, Tahiti will start with six wells. Within several
months of initial production, output from the Tahiti
Spar platform is expected to increase to the facility
capacity of 125,000 barrels of oil per day.
Based on J. Rays high quality welding procedures,
Chevron awarded J. Ray McDermott a contract on this project
in 2005. The scope of work included transportation and
installation of subsea flowlines for the Tahiti project; two sixinch and four nine-inch wet insulated flowlines and Steel
Catenary Risers (SCRs), and Pipeline End Terminations (PLETs).
J. Ray also was awarded the recovery and hang off of two
abandoned export SCRs, a 20-inch and 16-inch, and the
installation of three large subsea manifolds ranging in weight
from 60 to 250 tons.
Riser Reliability
The riser system is a critical part of deepwater field
architecture its design and construction must be highly
reliable, to ensure the field can safely produce for many years
without interruption, said Jim Reiners, Chevrons Subsea
Installation Lead Engineer for the Tahiti Project.
SCRs are technically feasible and commercially efficient
for reservoirs with high temperatures and pressures, but they
are highly sensitive to environmental loading and fatigue. Such
forces over the fields lifetime include water pressure, vessel
motion, wave action and ocean currents, so SCRs must be
designed and installed in a way that minimizes the damaging
effects of these stresses.
Manufactured from pipe sections with strict pipe-end
tolerances to reduce misalignment and pipe-ends matching
and/or counter bore on the ID of the pipes, SCR sections must
meet high tolerance and fracture toughness requirements
after field welding, explained Reiners.
In order to meet demanding service requirements, welding
criteria for fatigue sensitive SCRs is probably one of the most
stringent in the world. J. Rays welding procedures for the
offshore installation of the SCRs met or exceeded these
rigorous specifications.
J. Ray McDermotts proven J-Lay technique was
28 J. Ray NEWS

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ideally suited for the fatigue-sensitive SCR installation in Tahitis

4,300-foot water depth. Mounted on J. Rays dynamically
positioned installation vessel, DB50, the J-lay equipment
allows precise control of all operations in water depths
beyond the limits of conventional moored systems.
Laying SCR pipe by J-lay, at near-vertical angles
significantly reduces fatigue on the quad joints, by reducing the
distance of the flowline touchdown to the seafloor, explained
John Danos, J. Rays Marine Operations Division Manager for
Deepwater and the Americas.
Feasibility for Multi-Joint Facility
With the riser installation scope awarded to J. Ray in
October 2005, Chevron began discussions with J. Ray to
fabricate the quad joints for the project, convinced that it was
best for project schedule and quality. The quad joints required
the same high-quality welds as the offshore field welds. Each
quad joint comprised four 40-foot pipe joints and one forged
J-Lay collar, thus the amount of welding required on the
project increased five fold.
At Chevrons request, J. Ray began a feasibility study to
build a dedicated multi-joint fabrication facility at its Morgan
City marine base in Louisiana to handle the quad-joint onshore
fabrication. Simultaneously, J. Ray prepared a commercial
proposal to build the facility and perform the fabrication work.
Chevron awarded us the quad joint scope of work in January
2006, said Danos. By fabricating and installing both the
pipeline quad joints onshore and handling the offshore J-Lay
installation, we minimize the typical interfaces between fabricator and installer and maintain a consistent high-quality weld
critical for subsea flowline installation at these depths.
A welded joints fracture toughness is highly influential in
the fatigue life of the joint, as it defines its resistance to failure
through fracture once flaw propagation has reached a
critical size.
Extensive qualification to confirm weld ability and
provide long-term fatigue performance in an offshore
environment is vital. The welded joint fracture toughness for
high-yield strength risers requires careful attention to line pipe
properties and welding processes, as difficulties can arise with
higher strength steels that tend to have high hardness and low
fracture toughness properties.
As we began construction of the multi-joint facility in
January 2006, we also began construction of a J-collar
workshop for the preparation, assembly and welding of the
upper J-collar forging assembly to individual 40-foot pipe joints.
The J-collar shop and the multi-jointing facility were designed
and built in just 13 months. A commendable achievement,
said Danos.
To maximize productivity during construction of the multijoint facility, two out of five quad-joint welds were performed
in the J-collar shop; the J-collar was welded to the pipe
section and then a 22-inch pup-section was welded to the
J-collar. Subsequently, 40 percent of the required quad-joint
welding was completed prior to the completion of the multijoint facility.
By late January 2007, J. Ray was running quad joints through
the new multi-joint facility. All welds were Fusion Bond Epoxy
coated and insulated per Chevrons requirements. Quad jointing
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was completed on schedule during the last week of May 2007.

At peak production, the facility completed 50 welds in a
10-hour day. Overall, we successfully completed 3,255 welds,
60% of which were critical fatigue-sensitive welds; all
adhered to Chevrons stringent SCR weld acceptance criteria,
said Danos.
Our high-quality welds, excellent weld and material
traceability of finished work, schedule certainty and superior
safety record during the fabrication of the Tahiti quad joints
are all measures of the success of our new multi-jointing
facilities to support our growing subsea business and our
customers project completion.

Number of Onshore Welds

Completed for Tahiti
Multi-Joint Facility
9-inch welds | *SCR+FSFL | 786 high spec fatigue
sensitive welds
*SFL | 534 high spec flowline welds
6-inch welds | SCR+FSFL | 369 high spec fatigue
sensitive welds
SFL | 270 high spec flowline welds

J-Collar Shop
9-inch welds | SCR+FSFL | 532 high spec fatigue
sensitive welds
SFL | 360 high spec flowline welds
6-inch welds SCR+FSFL | 250 high spec fatigue
sensitive welds
SFL | 180 high spec flowline welds
*SCR (Steel Catenary Riser), SFL (Standard
Flowline), FSFL (Fatigue-Sensitive Flowline)

J.Ray N EWS 29

SCR Pull-in Equipment

Location: installed on the top of the Spar

hull to support the pull-in of the SCR
flowlines to the hull.
Equipment: 1,000 kip chain jack, multiple routing sheaves, 1,700ft of 3 3/8
chain, chain locker to store the chain
when not being used.
Once the crew has successfully welded
each flowline SCR, the end will be lowered into the water using an A&R winch
and held in position. The DB50 must
move close to the Spar hull to gather the
end of the 3 3/4 chain and transfer it
to the vessels chain receptacle. Once in
place, the chain is locked in the receptacle while the loose end of the chain
is attached to the pull-in rigging at the
end of the SCR pull head. The complete
rigging system is then lowered into the
water using the J-Lay travel block and
transferred to the
A&R winch.
The load of the SCR is eventually transferred from the A&R winch to the chain
jack on the Spar hull, which begins to
pull the chain and the SCR into the designated pull tube below the
Spar hull.
The base of each pull-tube is approximately 588 feet below the water line,
while the top of each tube is 35 feet
above the water line. Once the pull head
clears the top of the tube an SCR support ring is installed on each SCR, which
is then centered and placed on top of the
pull-tube and a support ring is bolted up
to the pull-tube.
30 J. Ray NEWS

Fabrication of
Subsea Hardware
Having established J. Rays proven
welding processes and quad-joint
fabrication capability for Tahitis subsea
infrastructure, Chevron subsequently
awarded J. Ray the fabrication of Tahitis
eight PLETs and eight flowline jumpers.
With fabrication resources already
dedicated to the project and our welding
criteria prequalified, we were able to
handle the fabrication of the PLETS and
jumpers very systematically,
said Danos.
The space afforded by J. Rays Morgan
City fabrication facility allowed the team
to fabricate the eight PLETs in parallel
and perform factory acceptance and
systems integration testing operations.
Establishing four jumper fabrication
sites, the jumpers will begin fabrication
in May 2008.

mobilized to the Tahiti field to install

four PLETs and four nine-inch production
flowlines which were installed before the
Spar hull.
Additionally, J. Ray installed three
large manifolds in up to 4,300 feet of
water: an eight-slot production manifold
weighing 250 tons, six-slot production
manifold weighing 200 tons, and a
discovery well tie-in manifold weighing
60-tons.
The DB50 crew returned to the
Tahiti field, in April 2008 to complete
the subsea installation work. Two unique
aspects remaining are the recovery and
installation of the two export SCRs,
a 20-inch and a 16-inch, that are on
the seafloor, and the installation of the
flowline SCRs to the Spar hull.
The export SCR installation will be
a challenge as DB50 will first have to
recover them from under five mooring
lines, said Danos. We plan to use an
abandonment and recovery (A&R) winch
to initially raise each SCR from the
Offshore in Tahiti
In August 2007, J. Rays DB50 seafloor, then transfer rigging to move
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J-Lay Advantage

Most conventional S-Lay pipelay vessels

weld 40 or 80-foot long pipe joints and
use multiple welding, non-destructive
testing (NDT) and field joint-coating stations. DB50s cost-effective 775-kips capacity J-Lay system can handle 160-foot
quad-joint pipe sections, with fully automatic welding, NDT and field-joint
coating operations in a single, fully enclosed station located at the base of the
J-Lay tower.

the load from the A&R winch to the DB50

derrick crane. Once out from under the
mooring lines, the SCR will be brought
to the DB50 for removal of subsea
protective components and attachment
of pull-in rigging. Well then pull the
SCR into a receptacle located 500 feet
below the surface using specialized pullin equipment and rigging, positioned
on the Spar hull to assist with pull-in
operations.
The Future Looks Deep
Projects such as Tahiti involve
highly
sophisticated
technologies
and resources to ensure challenging
deepwater hydrocarbon extraction is
successful. This type of exploration is
costly, risky and time consuming. High
quality, reliable, safe performance on
such projects is imperative.
As the industry focuses on even
deeper water extraction to meet the
worlds increasing energy demands,
solutions will become more concentrated
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on and within the seafloor to allow

optimal subsurface exploitation.
J. Rays greater focus on its subsea
business unit comes at a time when the
industry is pushing further into
new frontiers.
Establishing a concentrated subsea
business is relatively straight forward,
explained Bruce Crager, J. Rays Vice
President of Subsea. As the Tahiti
project scope attests, we already
have all the pieces vessels required
to install flowlines, SCRs and other
subsea hardware; high quality welding
technology and fabrication facilities to
construct quad joints, manifolds, PLETs,
jumpers and more; and Mentors 20 years
of proven subsea engineering capability.
In addition, our project management,
cost control and scheduling expertise,
with J. Rays worldwide EPCI resources,
enable our customers to realize their
ultra-deep dreams, where certainty
is imperative.

J-Lay offers a great advantage over SLay with regards to fatigue. While the
sag-bend stresses are similar between
the two installation methods, J-Lay has
lower stresses at the top of the pipe
string in the order of 15-20 percent
specified minimum yield stress (SMYS),
while S-Lay typically sees 80-85 percent
SMYS. This stress factor is important as
the topside of the pipe sees higher cyclic
loading, which determines the amount
of fatigue damage induced
during installation.
Versatile Underwater Capabilities

DB50s high-capacity underwater lowering system allows J. Ray to install heavy

manifolds in deep water. With its dynamic positioning capability, the vessel
can maneuver directly over the piles on
which the production manifolds land.
The flexibility DB50 affords with its capability to switch from installation of
flowlines or mooring lines, to subsea
and above-water facility installations
uniquely benefit customers by improving project schedules and reducing remobilization costs, which
mitigates risks.
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