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Jim Britton
Deepwater Corrosion Services Inc.
6830 North Eldridge Parkway,
Houston, TX. 77041. USA
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ABSTRACT
As offshore structures around the world are ageing and in many
cases reaching the end of their useful lives, operators are
looking for ways to reduce costs on subsea maintenance without
increasing risk of failure.
This paper presents three case
histories of platform and pipeline retrofits where innovation
in design and installation methods have resulted in successful
CP retrofits at significant cost reductions over conventional
methods.
Several new concepts of inspection, design, and
installation hardware are presented.
Keywords: Cathodic Protection, Retrofits, Offshore Platform,
Offshore Pipeline, Impressed Current Offshore, Buoyant Anodes
INTRODUCTION
Many offshore structures, platforms and pipelines, will
require a cathodic protection retrofit in the next several
years. The required life extension will vary from one or two
years through adding over 20 years to the original design life
of the equipment. Historical approach to retrofit has been to
replace anodes on a one for one basis, this approach is very
costly and completely un-necessary.
There is a tendency for
the industry to misinterpret the reasons why CP systems for
new structures are designed the way they are, they are
invariably designed to satisfy installation requirements.
For example, a pipeline bracelet anode is designed to look the
way it does to facilitate pre-installation of the cathodic
protection system on the pipeline, the shape of the anode is
designed so that the pipe can be easily laid with the anodes
in place. In truth, the bracelet anode is possibly the worst
that an anode could be (from the cathodic protection engineers
standpoint).
The resistance is high, the utilization factor
is low, the manufacturing cost is high and the throwing
power is poor.
Another example is the conventional platform anode. They are
attached by welding extremely stout pipe cores to the
structure, why to withstand launch forces and/or pile driving
during installation. Again the CP design is predicated on the
installation method. Is this the best way to install an anode
on a large bare steel structure well of course not,
utilization is reduced, the standoff distance is not optimized
and the cost of all those welds is very significant.
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RETROFIT DESIGN
Just as new construction cathodic protection designs are made
to facilitate installation of the offshore platform or
pipeline, the cathodic protection design criteria are designed
to polarize a structure from native state potential, provide
adequate redundancy in design to allow for some system damage
during installation or for unknown environmental affects. In
new construction there is little incentive to over-optimize
if it entails any added risk. When considering a retrofit
there are a number of major differences that should be
reflected in the design criteria selection:
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Line location
Having an accurate position on the pipeline is essential,
particularly if the line is buried.
The hourly rate on the
offshore equipment necessary to effect a pipeline retrofit is
such that it is unacceptable to waste any time trying to
locate the pipeline.
Line Depth of Cover
Knowing where the pipeline is exposed or has only minimal
cover will save significant time and money.
If a retrofit
site is inadvertently selected where the pipeline is buried 2
meters deep, it could take divers many hours to excavate the
pipeline, and then they would be forced to work in a deep hole
where visibility would be essentially zero.
Knowing CP System Performance
By measuring the field gradients as well as potential, the
resilience of the CP system can be estimated, as well as any
areas of significant coating damage.
Having an ROV fly the
line there is always the chance of obtaining a visual
inspection opportunity on one or more anodes, this can provide
invaluable information to the CP designer.
Verification of Environmental Conditions
The survey will give a good indication of seabed conditions,
current velocities etc., as well as giving accurate seawater
and more importantly mud resistivity information.
Armed with this survey information, the designer can first
select ideal sites for retrofit anode locations based on the
depth of cover survey.
Knowing the current density
requirement and general coating condition facilitates accurate
application of attenuation models to optimize spacing between
retrofit sites.
Knowledge of the mud resistivity allows
accurate calculation of current outputs from various anode
arrays.
On platforms it is the same story, using an intelligent survey
approach [3], [4], will yield valuable information on CP
system performance. Again, structure potential data alone do
not tell the whole story.
Estimation of anode depletion
percentage is another area where mistakes are often made.
Fig. 1. shows a dimension vs. volumetric relationship on a
typical platform anode.
As can be seen, the first 12 mm of
cross sectional reduction equates to 12.6% loss of metal, near
the end of life the same reduction represents only 7.1%
volumetric loss. Thus it is important to take accurate
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Results
The results of the retrofit were excellent, in fact the
current required was less than anticipated and the sleds are
now operating at a little over 65% of their rated capacity.
Even though the anodes were not truly remote, the effects of
the impressed current system could be measured all over the
platform. The installed cost comparison versus a conventional
dual clamp-on anode approach is presented in Table 11.
This
supposes that the structure would support the weight, in truth
the cost would have been much higher because anodes would have
to have been removed before the new ones could be installed.
Case History No. 3 - 90M (300 feet) Drilling / Production
Platform
This structure was the same vintage as the previous example
and was installed in the same field. The major difference is
that this structure had a depleted anode system but was still
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% A n o d e C o n su m p tio n v s D im e n sio n s
S ta n d a rd 7 2 5 lb A n o d e o n 4 .5 " O D C o re
1 00.0
90.0
80.0
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
1 0.0
0.0
0
0.5
1 .5
2.5
3.5
4.5
In c h e s O f f O r ig in a l C r o s s S e c tio n
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Figure 8.
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Retrofit
Site No.
Date
Quantity
Unit Cost
Total Cost
14
$3,200.00
$44,800.00
Engineering Fee
Lump Sum
Lump Sum
$ 5,000.00
$35,700.00
$249,900.00
$299,700.00
Item Description
Cost
ICCP System Cost (Four Anode Sleds, Rectifiers, I-Tubes, Cables, Reference Electrodes and Cable Clamps)
$150,000.00
$ 30,000.00
$180,000.00
$360,000.00
$210,000.00
$540,000.00
$750,000.00
Table 11.
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Item Description
Cost
$100,000.00
$ 64,000.00
$120,000.00
$284,000.00
$130,000.00
$280,000.00
$410,000.00
Table 15. Cost Comparison Anode Pod / Hanging Anodes vs. Conventional Dual Retrofit System.
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