More Pipe-in-Pipe success with bp Rhum project

03 Feb 2006

A contract to supply one of the North Sea’s highest pressure and longest Pipe-in-Pipe insulation systems has been successfully completed by Corus Tubes.

In 2005, following their successful appointment by BP Exploration Operating Company as EPIC contractor to the BP Rhum project, Saipem UK awarded the Pipe-in-Pipe fabrication contract to Corus. The Rhum field is located 380 km north east of Aberdeen, Scotland and will be producing gas at extreme temperature and pressure through a 44 km pipeline to the BP operated Bruce platform.

The system was fabricated and insulated using injected polyurethane foam at the Corus 42 inch pipe mill in Hartlepool. Pipe coating operations were performed in conjunction with Italian based specialists Socotherm. Fabricated to exacting dimensional tolerances and designed to ease the offshore lay process the system insulates the pipeline to avoid, in service, the formation of hydrates that would otherwise block the pipe and render it inoperable.

The pipeline was laid by Saipem during the second quarter of 2005. Co-venturers in the project in the Rhum development are BP (operator) 50% and Iranian Oil Company UK 50%. Rhum has estimated resources of 1.1 trillion cubic feet (31 billion cubic metres) of gas of which 800 billion cubic feet (23 billion cubic metres) is deemed recoverable.

The contract maintained the growing tradition of Corus success in the many Pipe-in-Pipe projects, notably including the Phillips Jade project, it has completed to date.