Subsea recovery of swabbing chemicals
AssigneeWeatherford/Lamb, Inc.
InventorsAlan J. Sweeney, Peter Dixon
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Apparatus and methods are described for subsea pipeline servicing, including dewatering and chemical containment. A subsea pipeline service skid has a containment bladder affixed to the skid and in fluid communication with a skid mounted pump dimensioned to pump fluid from the subsea pipeline. A sensor system at the suction side of the pump detects the presence of seawater, water, chemical agent, or gas so the pump can be operated accordingly. The chemical agent used during dewatering operations of the pipeline is selectively pumped to the containment bladder subsea so the subsea vehicle can independently take the chemical agent to the surface.
Claims30
A subsea pipeline conditioning system for handling a discharged fluid from a pig receiver at a terminus of a subsea pipeline during conditioning with a chemical agent, the system comprising:
- a system inlet of the system in fluid communication with the pig receiver at the terminus;
- a system outlet of the system in fluid communication with the system inlet;
- at least one subsea bladder in fluid communication with the system inlet and selectively receiving the discharged fluid;
- and
- at least one sensor in fluid communication with the system inlet and at least detecting a presence of the chemical agent in the discharged fluid,
- wherein the at least one subsea bladder receives the discharged fluid from the pig receiver in response to the detected presence of the chemical agent in the discharged fluid, and
- wherein the system outlet discharges the discharge fluid to a subsea environment in response to an absence of the detected presence of the chemical agent in the discharged fluid.
A subsea pipeline dewatering method, the pipeline having a first terminus in fluid communication with a second terminus, the second terminus having a pig receiver, the method comprising:
- deploying at least one slug of a chemical agent from the first terminus of the pipeline;
- receiving fluid at a system inlet in fluid communication with the pig receiver;
- discharging the received fluid in advance of the at least one slug to a subsea environment;
- monitoring for a property indicative of the chemical agent in the received fluid being discharged to the subsea environment;
- and
- switching discharge of the received fluid from the subsea environment to at least one subsea bladder in response to detection of the monitored property.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.