Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2009
Introduction
As described in Chapter 1, the general arrangement and layout of ship-shaped offshore units designed for oil and gas operations may be grouped into several major parts: hull structures including storage tanks, topsides (processing facilities), export facilities, mooring facilities, accommodations, machinery space, subsea systems, and flowlines. All of these various parts are equally important to achieve successful operation, with due consideration of safety, health, environment, and costs versus benefits.
This chapter focuses on topsides, moorings, and export facilities. The material presented herein is aimed at the nonspecialist introductory reader. It is consistent with the content of this book and is included, primarily, to complete the coverage of the various aspects relating to ship-shaped offshore units.
Topsides consist of processing facilities that are typically located as elevated modules that are several meters (say, 3m or more) above the main deck of the vessel hull, but related piping systems may be located on the main deck of the vessel hull. Depending on the vessel size and topsides layout, the topsides modules may have multiple decks that contain the oil-, water-, and gas-processing facilities; utility systems; and similar functions. The preferred configuration, however, may be that to the extent possible, the topsides facilities would be incorporated as single-layer “pancake” units. The single-layer unit arrangement requires a larger main deck area for a given set of needs.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.