Plastic Reeled Elastic Pipelay Fendercare Marine, suppliers of marine services and products, has launched a new range of piggyback saddles to assist pipeline installation for the offshore industry. The new piggyback saddles are made of polyurethane elastomer, a highly flexible, low friction material which Fendercare Marine has extensive experience of using in the design and supply of products to the offshore industry. Piggyback saddles – alongside clamps and spacers – can act as a shaped interface between a pipeline and a cylindrical buoyancy tank, to ensure the tank rides comfortably and safely on top of the pipeline during the laying operation. They can also act as separators during parallel lay installations and are most frequently used when smaller secondary umbilicals or pipelines need to run along the top of the main pipeline in piggyback formation. Polyurethane elastomer is recognised as the best material for such installation aids, as it is easily mouldable, neutrally buoyant in seawater, easily installed on deck and well suited to long-term
This implementation on Thistle gives us the opportunity to gain experience with the technology in a relatively benign environment as part of our strategy to lead in innovative developments.” Magma Global aims to increase reliability and enable innovative pipeline solutions for the exploration and production of subsea oil and gas through: l significantly improving performance and durability l enabling the optimisation of production architectures
subsea deployment without the risk of degradation of material. Fendercare Marine, currently celebrating 25 years of trading, is offering the piggyback saddles as a bespoke solution to individual project requirements. From design and analysis through manufacture and testing to supply, there is a choice of banding materials such as Monel, Inconel, Carbon Steel, Titanium or others as demanded by project requirements, together with a supply of banding installation tools. Fendercare Marine have divisions which are involved in marine installation and diving operations, and they have drawn upon this in-house knowledge to develop solutions which are as operator-friendly as they can be either on the barge or the sea-bed. Offshore Business Development Manager Chris Sparrow said “We are delighted that we’re now able to offer a consultative, best-in-class solution within this area of the pipelaying operation. The demand for this product has
Piggyback saddle already exceeded our expectations, with orders already coming in fast. This product is a natural extension of our development over the past few years of some unique and highly advantageous materials for the construction of pipelaying buoyancy modules.
l reducing capital and operational costs l reducing deployment costs l reducing environmental impact l extending field life
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UT3 February 2013