A LEAK GUARD SYSTEM FOR FLEXIBLE SUBMARINE OIL PIPELINES

Abstract

Using the actual Off-Shore-Technique large oil tankers do not call at ports but charge and discharge their oil at terminals anchored as far as 30 km off the shore. Figure 1 shows such a terminal as a floating buoy anchored to the seabed with a mooring tanker. Tanker and buoy are connected by flexible floating hoses, buoy and seabed terminal by flexible submarine hoses and seabed terminal with the shore station by steel pipelines. A control system had to be developed that would give an early warning before leakage. No details were given by the manufacturer or the users of the pipelines. Therefore a solution of the telemetring problems had to be derived from an analysis of the growing leak and the Off- Shore-System.