Magma m-pipe® has been designed from the outset for use in challenging subsea environments, delivering exceptional performance with high strength, low corrosion and low fatigue over a high temperature range up to 200 degrees centigrade (400 degrees F) and high pressures up to 20ksi (20,000psi).
Magma m-pipe® has been deployed since 2012 with Operators around the globe. m-pipe® is also the first TCP product to complete qualification to DNVGL-RP-F119 with third party verification provided by DNV GL. Qualification involved extensive materials testing, design process development and verification, along with considerable full scale testing. This qualification forms the foundation for further qualification scopes which are already underway, covering larger diameter, long term production applications.
Magma has performed a range of testing as part of our m-pipe® qualification programme including physical aspects such as high temperature, bending, fatigue and wear resistance. We have also undertaken internal pressure testing up to 20ksi and external pressure testing down to a water depth of 2,000 metres. We have also tested m-pipe® with chemical screening across a number of different corrosive, intervention and petrochemical fluids that m-pipe® is likely be exposed to in subsea environments.
m-pipe® has high flexibility, fatigue and corrosion resistance and is 1/10th the weight of steel pipe, enabling shorter installation times, reduced buoyancy and hang-weight requirements and the utilisation of significantly smaller deployment vessels. Once installed, the long operational life of m-pipe® also significantly reduces whole field life costs compared with steel or non-bonded flexible alternatives. Independent research shows that these combined factors provide a substantial reduction in deployment and whole-life deepwater subsea field costs versus steel pipe equivalent installations.
The successful development of Magma m-pipe® is based on the selection of the world’s best pipe materials for subsea oil and gas transfer, our state of the art robotic and fully automated material manufacturing process, and a range of robust mechanical end terminations for the reliable coupling of m-pipe® to any existing exploration or production infrastructure.
Magma has a history of engineering excellence, from high quality materials selection and rigorous qualification and testing through to our automated manufacturing and m-pipe® material deposition technology. Our secure investment partners give us the scale to produce m-pipe® in diameters from 2 inches to 12 inches in lengths of up to 4,000m and in discrete lengths in diameters up to 24 inches. Pipe can be produced from our Portsmouth UK manufacturing base or onsite using one of our in-country manufacturing modules to meet local production regulations or requirements.
The inherent benefit of m-pipe® is that it is 1/10th the weight of traditional steel pipe, allowing the use of smaller transport and deployment vessels and reducing risk. Magma has worked in partnership with a number of suppliers to create compact spool deployment systems and packages. For example, Magma has worked with a partner on a back-deck reeler package to improve the return on investment and reduce costs for well intervention. The light weight of m-pipe® has the advantages of utilisation of smaller vessels for intervention work, including lower deployment costs, lower risk, faster deployment, efficient vertical handling, multiple partitioned reelers, low deck space, fast reeler package assembly and reduced crane lift weight
m-pipe® has undergone rigorous qualification and testing for fatigue, strain, bending, and impact, meaning reduced subsea project risks versus steel and NBF pipe. m-pipe uses the highest quality materials including carbon fibre and Victrex PEEK that have been proven in a variety of applications in the oil and gas industry and also in the medical, automotive, nuclear, aerospace and marine industries.
We have also conducted a range of survival fatigue tests, completing 13 million cycles on our m-pipe® product across strain ranges from 0.5% to 1.5%, with the majority of the cycles performed at 1% strain, in excess of the anticipated operational strains the pipe will require in operational use. On a typical customer project we adopt the conventional approach of completing a final survival fatigue test of the actual product to illustrate that the SN curve is conservative.
Steel pipes and un-bonded flexible pipes are susceptible to corrosion and fatigue, which makes them unreliable and expensive to deploy and maintain in many of the increasingly challenging deepwater, harsh environment and HPHT subsea applications.
Steel and NBF riser deployment, for example, requires large expensive deployment vessels, extra support vessels, hang-weights, additional tugs, higher carousel costs, crane weight limitations, limits on deployment rate per hour and higher deployment staff requirements. These projects also carry inherent greater project risk due to higher riser weight, tension, carousel inertia and crane handling.
There is an increasing need for subsea reliability for at least 25 years, making key performance attributes, material selection, automated production, process control and quality all key, combined with a growing need for the lower overall deployment costs that m-pipe® can deliver
m-pipe® core benefits include light weight 1/10th that of steel and non bonded flexible pipe, high wear resistance, low permeation, design for pressures up to 20ksi, high temperature operation up to 200 degrees Centigrade (390 degrees F), corrosion resistance to seawater, H2S and CO2 and well intervention fluids and excellent fatigue performance unaffected by sour service.
Magma m-pipe® uses oilfield industry standard fatigue tested end fittings, including hub, flange and threaded end termination with a flush bore seal and preloaded AX gaskets.
There are inherent subsea project benefits of a pipe that is 1/10th the weight of traditional steel in water and has six times the strength to weight ratio of equivalent steel pipe. The benefits include ease of handling and lower handling risk, rapid deployment that reduces overall project costs and a lower buoyancy and hang-weight requirement.
Magma’s mission is to produce the world’s most reliable risers, jumpers and intervention lines for sub-sea exploration and production. m-pipe® combines both carbon fibre and a high end oilfield polymer called PEEK. A state of the art fully automated robotic manufacturing process produces a pipe that performs in a deep water subsea environment, and enables significant reductions in the project risks and costs of deep water exploration and production.
m-pipe® can incorporate fibre optic brag gratings to enable strain measurement in axial and hoop directions. For example, this allows clients to connect and monitor riser performance in real time and react to the integrity of joints and the drilling riser, in order to better plan for maintenance and inspection.
The primary focus is to deploy m-pipe® as a spooled product from either a reel (2in-4in) or a carousel (4in-8in). In either arrangement the handling equipment specification benefits from the low product weight, simplifying handling equipment design, mobilisation and operation. Low pipe weight also has the advantage of reducing track tensioner requirements, saving weight, hardware cost and deck space.
m-pipe® can be configured in catenary or free standing arrangements. However, the free standing arrangements potentially use the low weight of m-pipe® to its best advantage. Magma proposes the m-SLOR arrangement as a commercially attractive solution, as this combines low weight composite pipe with highly efficient carbon composite buoyancy modules. This produces a high performance, low cost solution with many practical advantages with respect to process flow assurance, pre-installation etc.
Magma has developed an efficient pipe handling system with back deck equipment specialist Maritime Developments Ltd. The integrated reeler allows fast and efficient deployment and recovery of m-pipe® from a modular reeler designed with a compact footprint, and which allows installation through a moonpool, over the side or stern. The integrated reeler can also be supplied with HPU, control cabin and work platform to allow handling of riser buoyancy and lower riser package and other riser appurtenances.
m-pipe® can be used as per a coiled tubing intervention line, with a bottom ballast weight and short flexible m-pipe® section, or it can be configured in a free standing arrangement, using near surface buoyancy and a short flexible upper section to connect to the intervention vessel.
Yes, m-pipe® can be used for Intervention, Workover and Control (IWOC) riser applications and can be readily deployed in the moonpool of a drilling or intervention vessel. In such applications the m-pipe® line is connected to the workover riser as it is deployed. For such applications Magma and Maritime Developments have developed a compact integrated reeler with efficient horizontal deployment into the moonpool.
m-pipe® is fatigue tested in a similar manner to steel pipe, but its high resistance to fatigue means that testing it to failure is challenging using conventional techniques, since it requires the combination of high strain and high cycles. Loading can be achieved by bending over formers or by application of cyclic bending moments. However, specific tests rigs are used, as rigs used for other pipe types typically have insufficient stroke to achieve the strain or speed to achieve the number of cycles. Resonant fatigue testing is impractical as the air resistance resulting from high frequency large displacement movement prevents high strain levels from being achieved.
m-pipe® is highly resistant to oilfield production fluids and chemicals. This feature comes as a result of using high quality PEEK polymer in the m-pipe® laminate. PEEK is a high performing polymer made by Victrex and which is extensively qualified for such applications. PEEK is qualified for use with a broad range of oilfield chemicals including aggressive well stimulation fluids such as H2S, HCl and HF.
Whilst the focus is often on high temperature applications, m-pipe® has good performance at low temperatures. PEEK / carbon laminates are regularly used in the aerospace industry at sub-zero temperatures down to -60 degrees Centigrade, where m-pipe® maintains its toughness and performance envelope. Although not fully tested below this range application temperatures are believed to extend significantly below this level.
Magma has conducted impact testing to understand the effect of impact loading on m-pipe® due to dropped objects or very rough pipe handling. Based on this work Magma is confident that m-pipe® will be robust in an anticipated offshore environment, and will be significantly more robust than a non-bonded flexible pipe that is prone to damage of the outer layer and subsequent flooding of the steel elements.
m-pipe® can be flexed to a small bending radius and can accommodate pipe strains up to 3.4% without failure. However operational strains are typically limited to 1.6% in line with codes and standards. This still allows m-pipe® to be stored and installed from spools and carousels.