Pipeline Trenching Technology for Arctic Regions

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Introduction

The global oil and gas demand is rising dramatically and explorations of new oil and gas fields became one of major concern in the world. As a result of this, it has been evaluated that, the arctic region, mostly offshore, holds as much as 25% of the world’s unrecovered reserve of hydrocarbons where much of the reserve is lying under seasonal or year-round sea ice. So, future gas and oil production from the Arctic region may be played a crucial role in gas and oil industry. But any development in this arctic region deals with high level of risks and uncertainties. So, lot of research works are required to reveal effective and environmentally sound drilling and supplementary operations in the arctic region under the most extreme geographic and climate conditions.
Once a discovery has been made, main concern shifts to identify the oil and gas extraction and export technologies that are suitable for arctic regions. The main possibilities include oil tankers, pipeline export or a combination. Since shuttle tanker transportation may not be in the presence of extreme sea ice conditions and a good alternative may be pipeline exportation.
Pipeline may experience with high loadings that may be induced by ice gouging or scour, permafrost thaw settlement, strudel scour and upheaval buckling. Not only that, it may have to span uneven seabed features.
Trenching to reasonable depth where the pipeline and surrounding soil can sustain the imposed loads and stresses is typically considered the most effective solution. Pipelines should be buried a depth which is greater than maximum gouge depth expected over the pipelines design life to protect the pipeline from the ice gouging or scouring threat. Recent research studies have reveal...

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