Conceptual design of oil and gas transportation system in the Barents and Kara Seas

Abstract

Regardless of the current oil and gas industry sufferings, the Arctic region still stands as one of the most perspective areas for the development of hydrocarbon fields. Estimated resources of the Arctic Ocean are ca. 100 BTOE (Zolotukhin, A., & Gavrilov, V., 2011). Taking into account its severe conditions and environmental fragility, it is crucial to find both economically efficient and environmentally safe ways to produce and transport oil and gas from offshore fields. Therefore, current work is dedicated to evaluate feasible transportation concept for hydrocarbon fields in the Barents and Kara Seas and estimate the possibility of using Novaya Zemlya archipelago as a transportation hub. Main challenges for oil and gas transportation system in the Kara and Barents Seas are analysed. These include environmental conditions, ice features and iceberg occurrence, ice management strategies, navigation possibilities, variation of production technologies and pipeline design peculiarities. The thesis also provides climatic, environmental and infrastructural assessment of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. In addition, advantages of accessing the archipelago are investigated as well as its relative location towards existing and perspective oil and gas fields. The emphasis of the work is put on pipeline transportation system, evaluating of suitable pipeline routes, ensuring the sustainable flow regime of the produced fluid and design specifications of the subsea pipelines in the Arctic. State-of-the-art landfall construction and on-going Arctic offshore practices are discussed as part of the investigation. Analyses of collected information are to show the best location for future infrastructure and preferable method for constructing the shore approach for the pipeline. Estimation of installation loads and stresses is conducted for the chosen construction method. Al in all, current work emphasizes whether the suggested pipeline transportation of the hydrocarbons from the Barents and Kara Seas to the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago is a reliable and feasible concept for this Arctic region.