RPSEA Select SRP

SRP has recently been selected by the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) to execute a development contract qualify the Shrink-Fit technology for high fatigue applications.

RPSEA is established to facilitate a cooperative effort to identify and develop new methods for exploring, producing, and transporting-to-market energy from ultra-deepwater and unconventional natural gas and other petroleum resources.

The Shrink-Fit connection approach to riser fabrication has been successfully designed and developed to enable the manufacture of riser systems from high strength thick walled pipe that that are capable of operating with high internal pressures, beyond that which are typically available within the industry today. This technology has already been employed for manufacture of a shallow water drilling riser system in the North Sea.

The objective of this project is to qualify the Shrink-Fit connection which, as an alternative to welding, facilitates the fabrication of riser joints from high and ultra-high strength steel (80>130ksi) Through qualifying such a system, that can be manufactured from steel in excess of 80ksi, the wall thickness of the pipe can be significantly reduced, which in turn will reduce the weight, current loading, tensioner or hang-off requirements and cost of manufacture of critical deepwater riser systems.

The benefits for both deepwater surface BOP drilling facilities and deepwater steel catenary riser using grades of steel that are onerous to weld and (for drilling) pipe diameters that are difficult to thread are explained in other material on SRP’s Web site.

see RPSEA in Affilliations