Wellube has just successfully completed another subsea hot tapping project. This time, it was a 12” Class 900 subsea hot tap in the South China Sea.
Located in Block 11/05 in Bohai Bay, the client wanted a 12”’ branch connection from the existing 14” sour gas pipeline which was at a depth of 40 meters. Wellube deployed the specially modified hydraulically operated UW 760 hot tap machine rated to 2,000 psig operating pressure.
Since safety was of paramount importance for such an operation, a full engineering analysis as well as comprehensive risk assessment was conducted followed by extensive onshore training to get the divers familiarized with the equipment and its operations underwater, prior to the offshore deployment of equipment together with our experienced personnel.
The entire offshore hot tap operation was completed within 3 days, safely and without production downtime.
[mappress] Source: uniquegroup ,May 16, 2011;