Page 56: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2000)

Vessel Focus: FPSO

FPSO Retrofit Design Accelerated With CAD

Software that automatically produces loop, cable, and termination drawings from information in piping and instru- mentation diagrams (P&IDs) allowed

Merpro Limited to prepare electrical schematics for an offshore retrofit twice as fast as on previous projects. The retrofit involved a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) tanker, the Bluewater Uisge Gorm, which was increasing the water cut and accumulat- ing solids in one of its separators. Mer- pro designed a system that addressed both problems. The documentation for the system included 78 electrical schematics, and in a time and cost-sav- ing move designers created "intelligent"

P&IDs containing equipment specifica-

The Mooring Specialists

Chain Hawser Hooks Chain Stoppers SPM Load Monitoring

Quick release under full load

Loads to 450 tonnes SWL

Remote release

Load monitoring

Designed for class 1 zone 1

Designed to OCIMF guidelines

Approvals to Lloyds, ABS, DNV.

Quick release under full load

Working load to 650 tonnes

Chain sizes to 110 dia

Load monitoring

Remote release

Deck mounted installation

Load data transmitted by radio telemetry - to base station - to portable monitor on vessel

Visual and audible alarms

Dual gauged load cells

Double sealed electronics

For class I zone I areas

Trouble shooting by remote modem access

Harbour & Marine

Engineering F [ PTY LTD 79 Asling St. Brighton, Melbourne, Australia. 3186. Phone: +61 3 9530 6333

Fax: + 61 3 9530 6366. Email: [email protected]

Web: http://www.harbourmarine.com

Circle 324 on Reader Service Card

Simplan® Face Seals

Optimal sealing properties for water-lubricated sterntubes

Simplex-Turmar, Inc.

P.O. Box 675, Tonawanda, NY 14151-0675 U.S.A.

Call Toll Free: 888-357-3257

Fax: 716-695-0144

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.simplex-turmar.com

B+V Industrietechnik tions, engineering information, and other data. Then they created loop and junction box templates using the soft- ware's drafting system. The prototypes used "tokens" to represent information such as tag number, manufacturer, model number, and so on. The software automatically generated loop, cable, and termination drawings by replacing tokens with descriptive data from the

P&ID instrument index master data- base, making it possible to complete the drawings in six weeks.

The Uisge Gorm is situated on the

Furgus Fife Oil Field in the U.K. sector of the North Sea, close to the Norwegian and Danish sectors. During the initial two years operation, being a marginal field the water cut increased quite dra- matically such that the field was produc- ing almost as much water as oil and this would continue to increase as the age of the field increased. The high water cut meant that the produced water system was running near its limit and as such to achieve the oil in water overboard dis- charge legislative requirements produc- tion had to be cut back, this would result in a decrease in revenue. A second problem, one of sand production, was also encountered during this period with plant shut downs having to take place at more frequent intervals to remove the solids build up in the separation vessels.

Besides the more frequent shutdowns to remove the solids, a potentially greater problem is the effect that sand has on the instrumentation and the erosive effects on pipework and valves. The existing plant like most installations in the North

Sea had no facility to manage solids.

Merpro Limited was contracted by

Bluewater Engineering b.v. to design a system to meet the above needs.

Merpro specializes in the design and manufacture of oil and gas processing systems primarily for the offshore sector a two-part solution was proposed for the

Usige Gorm. In the past, Merpro would have generated the documentation for a project such as this by using one pro- gram to create P&IDs, AutoCAD to cre- ate electrical schematics such as junc- tion box layouts and instrumentation loops, and a spreadsheet application to generate instrument and valve lists.

Since there was no connection between any of the programs, each schematic was started from scratch and equipment lists were created manually on spread-

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