JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1
Deepwater Challenges Technology
Y
ou may have noticed people grumbling
about the cost of filling their cars’ gas tanks.
Demand from developing countries like China is
a major reason for the rising price. And since
China isn’t going away any time soon, prices
probably won’t be dropping. As the prices rise,
so does the scramble to find more petroleum
and gas.
The oil and gas industry has been pumping
hydrocarbons from beneath the seafloor for 50
float attached to anchors. Imagine throwing an
anchor over the side of a boat; the rope falls in a
long curve between the anchor and the boat,
which means you need more rope. Deepwater
engineers keep the rope shorter by redesigning
the anchor, so the rope can fall more vertically.
The length of the risers—the pipes through
which the hydrocarbons flow—means the risers
are heavier, so new drill ships capable of
carrying the tons of pipe and other drilling
Looking for oil and gas beneath the
seafloor presents multiple complex
problems. This illustration shows many of
the systems involved in production.
Seafloor-based pumps send an oil-gaswater mix along pipes to a rig where it is
either pumped to shore or stored—and
sometimes separated into oil, gas and
water—in offshore platforms until enough
is collected to fill a tanker, which then
takes the fuel to shore. (Illustration
courtesy of Bennex Subsea, Houston)
years, and we have already found the most
easily developed oil and gas resources. Now
companies are pushing farther off shore into
deeper and deeper waters, with some exploring
more than 5,000 feet deep and beyond.
Consider some of the challenges of going
deeper:
• The seafloor is way, way down there.
• Water pressure is greater.
• It’s dark!
Metal chains and wire rope used in
shallower water to moor or anchor drill rigs are
often replaced by polyethylene (a type of plastic)
rope, which is only slightly heavier than water:
it’s not light enough to float, yet it is considerably
lighter to transport on a ship to the site.
The water depth and pressure are too great
for rigs to stand on metal legs on the seafloor,
as they do in shallower water, so they have to
equipment have had to be designed and
constructed. Where deepwater makes anchoring
difficult or not practical, the ships are designed
to stay stationary by using their engines and
global positioning systems to resist the waves
and currents, a process called dynamic
positioning. (See story on page 4.)
When oil and gas are pumped from an
underwater well, water is part of the mixture.
The deeper the well, the more weight of water,
gas and oil is brought up. Engineers are working
on designs to separate these products on the
seafloor where the wells are. In the meantime,
the mixture is brought to the surface and stored
in floating platforms until there is enough to fill a
tanker. Some of the floating platforms actually
process the mixture before the tankers arrive.
“Some of these problems,” says civil engineer
Continued on page 2
Deepwater Challenges
Continued from page 1
Career Corner
Variety Spices a Civil Engineer’s Work
T
he oil and gas industry uses a wide variety of engineering specialties to design and create the
many complex systems required to find, drill, recover and process oil and gas. Civil engineers are
one type of specialist.
Decades ago all engineers did what civil engineers do today: they designed roads, bridges,
dams, sewers and other aspects of infrastructure. As technology advanced, universities offered
degrees in civil, mechanical, chemical, industrial and electrical engineering. Each of these major
disciplines was further specialized. Today, even though universities often do not offer degrees in
these specializations, civil engineers can, through practice, focus on soils; structures; and
environmental, architectural, forensic, aeronautical, metallurgical, welding, marine, metocean and
many other specializations, as well as the basic infrastructure specializations mentioned above.
A civil engineer in the oil and gas industry in the marine environment might be involved in many
all of these specializations. With both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering, Ron
Kelm—mentioned in the article on Deepwater Challenges—specializes in:
• Soils: designing foundations such as piles and footings
• Structures: designing ship hulls, buoys, offshore platforms, offshore buildings and many
subsea elements
• Metocean: designing structures to float, to be submerged in or to be supported above the
ocean, resisting oceanic, seismic, wind, mudslides and other meterological forces.
• Forensics: determining the causes of failures in structures in an oceanic environment
because of various factors from soils, wind, ocean and other things
If civil engineering looks like a major for you, search for “civil” in the Guide to Marine Science
and Technology Programs in Higher Education. (See the Cool Links column on page 3.)
KEY TERMS
Hydrocarbon: A compound of hydrogen and carbon. In liquid form, it is petroleum; in gas form, it is
natural gas.
Petroleum: In Latin, petra means rock and oleum means oil. Petroleum is liquid hydrocarbon.
Suction Pile: A pile-type structure lowered to the seafloor, which by evacuating the inside water,
uses outside water pressure as the driving energy.
Rigs: A structure that is used to drill and/or control multiple wells sitting on the seafloor. The
illustration on page 1 shows one rig controlling multiple wells. Offshore drilling rigs either can be
moved from place to place, allowing for drilling in multiple locations, or they are permanently placed.
Moveable rigs are often used for exploratory purposes because they are
much cheaper to use than permanent platforms.
Water pressure: On land, air pressure pushes down about
14.7 pounds per square inch. Water pressure at 1,000
MTS Club News is a
meters (3,300 feet) below the surface of the ocean is
publication of the
100 times greater.
Marine Technology Society
and a member benefit of the MTS Club.
To join the MTS Club, visit the Web site
at www.mtsociety.org/club
Bruce C. Gilman, P.E.
Marine Technology Society President
Susan Branting
MTS Club News Editor
[email protected]
2
www.mtsociety.
org/club
Ron Kelm, who works in the oil and gas industry,
“take decades to solve.”
Water pressure has other effects besides
making it impossible for rigs to stand on metal
legs. Pile-driving hammers used to force the
anchor piles into the seabed don’t work in
deepwater, but engineers have solved this
problem by using the pressure itself. A suction
pile is allowed to fill with water and become set
on the seabed. As the water is pumped out of
the pile, the pressure of the surrounding water
presses the pile down into the seabed so that a
pile-driving hammer is not needed. The greater
the pressure, the easier the pile is driven.
Because divers can’t work safely in very
deep water, companies use remotely operated
vehicles (ROVs) to operate and repair
equipment on the seafloor. The ROVs come
equipped with “arms” that allow them to make
repairs, but the arms are not nearly as flexible
as a human hand. Engineers have worked to
solve this problem by redesigning the equipment
to fit the limitations of the ROVs.
Darkness isn’t as much of a problem as
depth and pressure. Powerful lights and
cameras attached to the ROVs “see” for the
people topside who are manipulating them.
The cost of developing a single deepwater
field can exceed $1 billion compared to $100
million for a typical shallow-water well. Yet the
costs of drilling and pumping aren’t the only
expenses. Most of the ocean where the oil and
gas can be found is owned by governments, and
many governments, such as the United States,
lease the oil fields to oil companies and require
that companies remove much of their equipment
when the hydrocarbons run out, as well as make
sure no other environmental damage occurs,
such as the remaining oil leaking into the sea.
These are just a few of the challenges
companies face. Their need for engineers to
solve them will stretch well into the future. To
find out more about offshore drilling and drilling
equipment, visit www.naturalgas.org/naturalgas/
extraction_offshore.asp and the How Stuff
Works Web site at science.howstuffworks.com/
oil-drilling.htm.
T
he Guide to Marine Science and
Technology Programs in Higher Education is
available to high school students interested in
majoring in a marine science or technology
career.
Published by the Marine Technology
Society and the Marine Advanced Technology
Education (MATE) Center, the guide includes
over 1,000 programs from 300 educational
institutions in an easy-to-use format that
includes indexing by location and the names of
the programs. Also in the guide are listings of
internships, scholarships, professional
associations and trade associations.
+A cademic Arena
E
very year, the Marine Technology Society gives away tens of thousands of dollars in
scholarships. Included is a $2,000 scholarship for graduating high school seniors who are interested
in marine technology or engineering. You don’t have to be a member of MTS to apply, but you do
have to have been accepted to a four-year university or college.
Go to www.mtsociety.org/education/?fa=student_scholarships and download an application,
either in PDF format (which you must fill out by hand and mail to MTS) or as an MS Word document
(which you can open in Word and complete on your computer, then e-mail to MTS). Applications
and supporting material must be received by MTS not later than April 15.
While you’re on the Web page, you’ll notice that there are many other scholarships available
once you are in college. Some of them require you to be a student member of MTS (not an MTS
Club member), while others are open to nonmembers as well as members. Be sure to apply for those
scholarships after you enter college.
San Diego Interns: Challenged and Excited
S
The guide is available as a PDF on the
MTS Web site at www.mtsociety.org/education.
You can also access it at a MATE Centermaintained Web site: www.oceancareers.com/
2.0. On this site, you can search the guide by
program and school location, as well as all the
other areas, like internships and associations.
While you’re at the Oceans Careers Web
site, you’ll notice that there are quite a few other
options for exploring a marine career. For
example, you can find out what an
environmental monitoring technician or a
commercial diver does by reading about real
people who have those jobs. There are also
profiles of many of the companies that employ
marine engineers and technologists.
The Oceans Career Web site is maintained
by the MATE Center under the auspices of the
Centers for Ocean Sciences Education
Excellence, which is also a co-sponsor of the
Guide to Marine Science and Technology
Programs in Higher Education.
AIC is a great work environment and I am
really glad that I was placed here because
everyone is friendly, knowledgeable, and they
are just generally good people.”
“Today I put together a controller for one of
the vehicles and it was pretty cool seeing how
everything functions. ”
“I have been fortunate enough to have had
a variety of fun and interesting experiences.
One day we caught a thresher shark and
performed a gill profusion. Another day, while
free diving the kelp patties offshore, I swam with
a blue whale.”
These quotes are from students who
participated in the MTS San Diego Section
Summer Intern Program. If you’re looking for a
work experience that will excite you like this,
consider applying. In 2007, 19 students were
placed in high-tech marine engineering
companies in the area for a six-week summer
experience, which included a stipend of nearly
$2,000. Internships are with prestigious
companies and research institutes in the San
Diego area and begin in early July.
To qualify, you must be 16 years old by
July 1, starting 11th or 12th grade in the fall of
2008, and have a grade point average of at least
3.5. And you must complete an application and
send it in not later than March 1. Applications
and additional information are at www.mtssandiego.org/internship.php.
Experiencing the real world of engineering
can have some unintended consequences, as
Zac, working at SAIC recounts: He was storing
some mooring systems and “we had to fit two
not-small and not-light boxes into a corner. I was
‘volunteered’ to get into the storage unit and put
them in. We measured the area to make sure
they would fit, and they did. About 5 minutes
later we figured out that we could fit another,
smaller box underneath the two boxes. We
pulled out the two boxes, placed the small one
in, and then I started to put the two boxes back.
The first one went in nicely, but for some reason
I could not get the second one in completely. I
pushed and pushed. After about one minute,
one of the engineers asked what was wrong. I
said, ‘It won't go in’—the forbidden phrase
around engineers. They were all really paying
attention now. I was still pushing and out of
nowhere one of the engineers kicked the box
pretty hard. Viola! The box fit perfectly!”
ASK AN EXPERT
Send questions to the Club News at
[email protected] to have them
answered by a Marine Technology Society
expert. Consider these topics:
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)
Buoy Technology
Cables & Connectors
Dynamic Positioning
Marine Education
Marine Security
Moorings
Ocean Energy
Ocean Exploration
Ocean Pollution
Oceanographic Instrumentation
Offshore Structures
Physical Oceanography/Meteorology
Remote Sensing
Ropes & Tension Member
Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV)
Seafloor Engineering
Underwater Imaging
3
Technology Goes
Deep to Get Fresh
Water from Seawater
F
resh water for drinking and
cooking is in short supply in many
parts of the world. The
technologies used to turn
saltwater into fresh water
usually involve removing the
salt, which can require a lot of
energy to carry out. But
researchers have been working
on another solution. By bring up
cold water from deep in the ocean, they have used condensation to create fresh water.
Close to the floor of the deep ocean, the water temperature ranges from 1º and 4º C (34º to
39ºF). When the water is brought to the surface in pipes, the cold pipes meet the warm of the
atmosphere and the moisture in the atmosphere condenses into water. You see this same thing
occurring on the windows of a car in the early morning: the cold car window condenses water from
the air. This method of creating fresh water works especially well in deserts near the ocean, like on
the Arabian peninsula or in some places in Hawaii, where rainfall is scant but humidity is high.
The same fresh-water-condensing process can take place in the soil. Experiments have been
conducted in which rugged, cheap pipe is laid in crushed lava rock, then dirt is piled over the rock
and vegetables planted in the dirt. Chilling the soil causes moisture to condense near the plants’
roots, delivering water exactly where it is needed. (See the illustration above.) This patented process
is known as ColdAg™.
Cold water from the deep ocean is rich in nutrients and doesn’t contain as many pollutants as
water near the surface does. Using deepwater to raise fish in fish farms may reduce the need for
antibiotics and feed.
These processes are still in experimental stages, but there is one way deepwater is being used
today: air conditioning. Using seawater to cool buildings is popular in many countries, from Sweden
to the desert countries of Arabia. Several buildings in Honolulu are under construction that will use
deepwater air conditioning.
You can learn more about how the Common Heritage Corporation is investigating the uses of
deep ocean water (DOW) at www.commonheritagecorp.com/tech.
Delving into the Deep
All words are in the story on deepwater technology. Answers
are online in the Info Hub at www.mtsociety.org/club.
Across
2. A type of plastic used for rope
8. The land at the bottom of the ocean
9. Pipes that carry hydrocarbons from wells to the surface
10. The weight of the ocean that increases with depth
12. Acronym for remotely operated vehicles
Down
1. The "eyes" on remotely operated vehicles
3. A compound of hydrogen and carbon
4. A professional who designs equipment and instruments
5. These make it possible to see in the darkest ocean.
6. A hydrocarbon that is like air, not liquid
7.
A liquid hydrocarbon
11. A platform on the surface of the water that holds
the riser
4
Stop that Ship!
DP Puts the Breaks On
Y
our ship is two miles above the ocean floor
ready to drill for oil. Imagine how you might hold
the ship still enough to drill in the face of strong
winds, waves and currents. Enormous anchors—
even eight or more—don’t hold well at that depth
and could damage other oilwells and pipelines
on the ocean floor.
What you need is a good dynamic
positioning (DP) system, which measures the
ship's position from Global Positioning Satellites
(GPS) and its heading from a gyrocompass.
Computers in the system then calculate the force
required to hold the drillship’s position and then
command several huge, 7,000-Horsepower
propellers. The DP system can hold that position
for months while the drilling proceeds.
Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) do all
the work in deep water. Dynamic positioning
systems can continuously position the ship over
an ROV as it moves below. DP ships and ROVs
work well together as a team.
Besides drilling, DP systems are used by
many other kinds of ships, as well as oil rigs.
Some examples are heavy-lift construction
vessels, ships that lay telecommunications
cables and pipelines along the ocean floor, and
even cruise ships that float off beaches without
putting anchors down onto protected coral reefs.
DP systems are complex and expensive, as
many things are in deepwater off shore, but
there are now thousands of DP vessels in
operation all over the world. It’s an ideal solution
in many cases and one that takes smart,
educated people to apply.