Petrochem/Utilities Industry Trends

API Moves Into Deepwater

Issue Table of Contents

API Moves Into Deepwater Keeping up with Deepwater Exploration and Development New Guidelines for a New World

Reflecting the industry’s increasing focus on deepwater environments, over the past several years the American Petroleum Institute (API) has published a number of new and revised standards and recommended practices designed to help offshore operators and lessees develop and manage their deepwater projects. While the U.S. government has already incorporated more than 60 API publications into federal regulations governing offshore operations, the organization expects many of its newer deepwater standards and recommended practices to eventually become required as well for companies operating in U.S. waters.

Yet as offshore technology continues to evolve, so do API’s standards. Even before the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) published its final new rule regulating the design and construction of offshore oil and gas production platforms and structures, API had already issued an updated edition of one of the new documents that had been added to the rule—API RP 14J, Design and Hazards Analysis for Offshore Production Facilities. Several others are soon to follow suit:

• An expanded version of API RP 2SK, Design and Analysis of Stationkeeping Systems for Floating Structures, will be released this month.
• The third edition of API RP 2T, Planning, Designing, and Constructing Tension Leg Platforms, is expected to be released in 2006.
• Work is underway on the second edition of API RP 2RD, Design of Risers for Floating Productions Systems (FSPs) and Tension-Leg Platforms (TLPs). While a release date has not yet been announced, the new document is expected to include information on new riser technology and provide guidelines for dealing with vortex-induced vibration.

Changes are being made to other publications as well, especially those associated with subsea production. “That’s an area where the technology continues to evolve at a fairly quick pace, so they’re working on those standards all the time to keep them up to date,” says Andy Radford, upstream standards manager, API.

Along with the work it’s doing revising existing standards to keep up with changing technology, API is also developing several new documents that are designed to help companies with their deepwater projects. Among the publications under development are a recommended practice focused on high integrity pressure protection systems and a standard for subsea templates and manifolds.

An International Perspective
While many of the deepwater standards API has developed are focused on U.S. requirements, the organization still recognizes that a number of its members operate internationally. For this reason, API is dedicated to working closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

“We’ve offered up a number of our standards as the basis for ISO standards, and then we adopt them back as the American National Standard,” says Radford. To date, API has adopted over 40 ISO standards as American National Standards and is working on adopting others as well.

To stay up to date on the changing body of standards affecting deepwater production, keep visiting IHS at http://petrochemical.ihs.com.

Subscribe to eNewsletter