New Recommendations for Offshore Wellhead Platform Structural Design Due to Well Conductor Casings Failures: Outcome of a Study Based on Actual Findings

Detailed study on structurally failed well conductors on offshore wellhead platforms lead us to believe that existing assumptions of conductors transfer only lateral loadings to wellhead platforms while entire well vertical loading will be carried by conductor itself; could be wrong. The well conductors could become ‘forced’ to carry a very large vertical loads incase the conductors are structurally failed; especially once exceeded its original design life. As such, some new considerations during the wellhead platform design, which need to be followed, are recommended here. These are to cater any catastrophic eventuality of conductor failures which will restrain further collapse of the conductors or to avoid any progressive collapse of the platform. The recommendations are from a study based on actual findings observed recently in the offshore field. The connection between conductors and platforms are conventionally designed as guided based on the load transfer assumptions. That is the huge vertical loadings from internal conductor casings and associated items were not a concern for platform design structural engineers, traditionally, and as such the conductors were designed to be structurally connected to the wellhead platforms using vertical guides. Due to extended design service life of platforms, in many cases the design life went up to two times of their original design life, severe degradation of structural integrity of the conductors were observed in the field. Structural analysis and assessment were carried out on many old intact and failed conductors, in the offshore field, in order to assess its structural and loading behavior with respect to supporting wellhead platforms. The study provided that the failed conductors were leaning / collapsing to the wellhead platform resulting in transferring a huge vertical loads which originally were designed to be carried by conductors alone. This huge transfer of vertical loads from conductor to the platform was unexpected and was not considered in platforms original design. Therefore, the platform should have sufficient structural strength to cater such extreme eventuality to avoid the risk of complete collapse. A risk assessment of a tilted / failed conductors indicated that the consequence of total failure of a conductor could be catastrophic in case the platform failed to resist the collapsing conductors. This paper presents the details of the study carried out on aged wellhead platforms, having failed long serving conductors, in Giant offshore field, Abu Dhabi, along with details of new recommendations to be followed while designing new wellhead platforms. The paper also recommends the structural design consideration to be followed while designing wellhead platforms in-case a conductor repair is necessitated in future.