National Supply Patents Subsea Template System —Literature Available

National Supply Company has received a U.S. patent for a subsea template system for multiple well drilling and production.

The template design was developed by National Supply's Well Control Systems engineering group, Houston, to reduce time and cost of underwater operations, whether by remote mechanical means or by divers, when installing subsea equipment and connecting it to a floating production vessel.

The system provides for assembly prepiping and testing of drilling and production modules on land to minimize at-sea and subsea installation operations, according to National Supply.

The company helped pioneer subsea production production to floating vessels. Floating systems allow earlier production than fixed platforms and require a lower capital investment, notes National Supply. These advantages make floating production particularly suited to fields where reservoir potential is still undefined and to small fields where the economic potential does not justify the cost of a fixed platform, explains the firm.

By reducing diver operations, the template system is particularly suited to deepwater fields where fixed platforms large enough to sit on the sea bottom may not be practical or physically possible.

The templates in the patented system come in two-well modules that serve as guides for drilling and as bases for completion or landing of trees and a manifold/ riser module. Template modules can be readily joined to provide for any number of wells. Drilling can be performed directionally using conventional subsea methods.

Prepiped flow lines between tree and template automatically engage when the tree is landed, eliminating problems of laying and attaching flow lines.

The United States patent for the system, No. 4,192,383, is officially held by Armco, National Supply's parent company.

For free literature containing complete details on the new subsea template system, write to William C. Marmack, Dept. MR, Armco National Supply, 1455 West Loop South, Houston, Texas 77027.

Maritime Reporter Magazine, page 25,  Sep 15, 1980

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First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.