[Posted on March 26th 2014 by Bill Stewart]
Accidents happen with oil rigs and offshore drilling all of the time. There are a lot of variables at sea and you want to take them all into consideration with your drilling facility. Riser analysis is critical to ensure you have thought of everything and that all is going to go smoothly when you make it out to the sea and set up a pipeline.
There are accidents at sea every day and many of them could have been avoided. Many people simply take to the sea without giving consideration to the amount of waves, the depth of the ocean, and even the temperature of the water.
With riser analysis, you can ensure that you don’t experience any kind of disconnect. Essentially, the risers are in place to be a conduit for transferring materials from the seafloor to your drilling rig at the top of the water’s surface. If you don’t establish the riser and all of the connections properly, you can experience an oil spill as well as various other problems.
Oil drilling and other offshore projects are expensive. It is important to get in the habit of strength testing a riser before you even make it out to the water to ensure that it will perform as you need it to. If there are issues, you want to know about them as soon as possible so that you can make changes to the overall design.
A marine accident investigation is going to take place if you have an issue with your riser or any other aspect of your rig while on the water. Instead of being counteractive, you want to find out about what could go wrong and then take the necessary precautions to ensure that they don’t happen. This requires riser analysis, which can be done with sophisticated software.
Your entire rig design can be entered into a computer. This includes noting where you will be setting up your facility, the length of your boat, and how far you will be anchored from the actual drilling site. Various variables will then be entered in including the depth of the water and the wave activities. It’s nearly impossible to tell what the actual depth of the water will be when you get out there as well as how high the waves can get.
This is why a ‘worst case scenario’ is going to be drafted as well. By doing this, you can get the most in-depth riser analysis so you can focus on preparing your rig to withstand all of the forces that could be experienced while you are at sea. This will prevent you from having an accident and potentially damaging your equipment or injuring your crew.
Taking the steps to order analysis before you go out can save you money and ensure productivity.