[Posted on May 14th 2014 by Bill Stewart]

When you are engaging in any kind of offshore drilling activity, it requires a significant amount of analysis. You need to bring a lot of specialized equipment onto the water with you and that’s where you will remain for months at a time. You cannot afford to make mistakes while you are out there, so the use of flexible risers along with detailed analysis is a must. Risers are used to serve as the connection between the drilling facilities and the subsea developments in the field. You will need to understand cable dynamics to account for all of the waves and other environmental factors while out in the water. Since you have a conduit in place, you cannot afford to disrupt the transfer in place and that is why flexible risers are commonly used. It offers, as the name implies, some flexibility to the overall structure of the drilling configuration so that you and all of your equipment are set up to the highest level out in the water. As you go into deeper water, you experience more pressure, more waves, and colder temperatures. All of these factors have to be a consideration so that you have the right equipment. Analysis of the riser configurations will ensure that you have considered all possible scenarios to avoid any kind of disruption to the material transfer. The flexible risers are going to act as a pipeline for vertical transportation. Should you be unable to find the riser that you need, the product would have nowhere to go because a vertical motion is required. As you gather the materials that are required for your offshore drilling, you need to take advantage of all the analysis that you can. Depending upon what you are drilling for and the depths of water that you are going into, you will need different types of equipment. If you fail to get the risers that are needed, your drilling expedition will not be as effective as you hoped. One of the biggest problems on the water is that you do not have access to more materials. Should someone have to bring supplies out to you, it leads to higher costs. When there are unplanned for costs, it can lead to a loss of investors – or the need to bring in more investors. Neither of these is ideal, which is why some planning before you ever take to the water is a necessity. Flexible risers provide you with the needed flexibility when you need a vertical connection so that you can move materials from the sea floor to the facility on top of the water. You don’t have to guess at what you need because advanced technology can run the scenarios and provide you with the in-depth analysis to tell you what the riser configuration should be and what you will require.