Subsea flow assurance insulation system for coating line pipe wins OTC Spotlight on New Technology Award

The Dow NEPTUNE^™ Advanced Subsea Flow Assurance Insulation System has been selected as a winner of the 2013 OTC Spotlight on New Technology Award. This annual awards programme, sponsored by the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), is designed to highlight new, innovative and proven technologies in the oil and gas sector that have broad market interest and a significant impact on the industry’s future.

The award-winning NEPTUNE System is an end-to-end subsea flow assurance solution that features a completely new and proprietary insulation material and offers the widest installation and operating temperature range of any wet insulation system on the market. With components for coating line pipe, field joints and subsea architecture, the complete system is a breakthrough in subsea insulation that protects assets from wellhead to delivery point.

The Dow Chemical Company developed the chemistry behind the system, working with industry coating applicators at Bayou Wasco Insulation, LLC (Bayou Wasco), a joint venture between The Bayou Companies, LLC and Wasco Energy, Ltd., Pipeline Induction Heat Ltd (PIH) (part of the CRC-Evans group of companies), and Trelleborg Offshore to optimise the coating application process and qualify the application for line pipe, field joints and subsea architecture, respectively.

“Winning an OTC Spotlight Award is a real honour for Dow and all of the teams that have contributed to bringing the entire NEPTUNE System to market,” said Alexander Lane, Dow Global Business Leader for Oil & Gas Transmission. “Receiving this award validates the NEPTUNE System as a true innovation that offers elevated performance and recognises that the development of this new solution was only made possible through the considerable collaboration of multiple industry experts across the flow assurance value chain. Each coating applicator was instrumental in the testing and full-scale qualification of their respective components of the NEPTUNE System.”

“We are proud of our role in developing the line pipe coating application process for DOW NEPTUNE Insulation,” said Eldridge Indest, Vice President – General Manager, The Bayou Companies, LLC. “We look forward to jointly accepting the OTC Spotlight Award with Dow and celebrating our success with the other applicators. This award serves as a great example of how collaboration in our industry can enable new solutions that benefit the market overall.”

The NEPTUNE System was developed in direct response to requests from offshore operators for subsea flow assurance protection from the harsh conditions encountered in deeper water, including broader temperature ranges and higher pressures. Featuring a robust and homogenous layer of novel insulation over a proprietary fusion-bonded epoxy, the complete system eliminates the need for multiple materials and adhesive tie layers. This helps to reduce the potential risks associated with bonding dissimilar and potentially incompatible materials, contributes to a thinner coating profile, and maintains a consistent low K-factor from tree to line pipe to field joint. From wellhead to delivery point, the system maintains excellent physical properties, including flexibility down to -40 °C (-40 °F) and thermal stability at service temperatures up to at least 160 °C (320 °F).

Adapted from press release by Cecilia Rehn. 

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/14032013/insulation_system_for_coating_subsea_oil_and_gas_pipelines_wins_otc_award-391/