A proprietary foam insulation was used on the 6-mile oil flowline for Shell Inc.'s King subsea project in Mississippi Canyon Block 807 in the Gulf of Mexico. - Newly coated pipe joints await welding and J-lay installation aboard McDermott's DB50 laybarge in late 1999 as part of subsea pipeline construction in the Gulf of Mexico.
Manufacturer Cuming Corp., Avon, Mass., said the subsea flowline was coated with its C-THERM syntactic foam insulation, becoming the first major subsea piping system insulated by the C-THERM cast-on-pipe process.
More than 6 miles of flowline were coated with the syntactic foam, which is tested and rated for 20 years of service at a depth of 3,300 ft and a temperature of 170 degrees F.
Cuming says syntactic foam offers higher thermal efficiency and better resistance to hydrostatic pressure than conventional plastic foam insulation materials.
The insulation was applied to the pipe at Cuming's new factory in New Iberia, La., adjacent Bayou Coating's facility in the Port of Iberia, La. The pipe joints were assembled at Bayou, then moved by barge offshore for J-lay installation by McDermott's DB50.
Cuming also supplied syntactic foam insulation for the pipeline-end manifold (PLEM) sleds that terminate each length of the King flowline.
