54 MAY/JUNE 2010 Visit our website at www.safan.comSubseaFeatureCIA 2005

Asiaflex Products toFacilitate Subsea Sector

A siaflex Products, Technip’s new factory,located in Johor (Malaysia) is progressingas planned and is currently being com-missioned. Manufacturing activities shall

progressively start from July 2010 and delivery of thefirst flexible pipe project is planned for February2011. The plant, built to cater to the growing demandfor deep water solutions in Asia-Pacific, will have acapacity of production of 200 km of flexible pipes andumbilicals per annum.

Asiaflex Products has been recording outstand-ing safety performance since the constructionstarted. The team has recently celebrated their1,500,000 manhours without LTI. This is a tangi-ble result of Technip’s explicit commitments toinstill strong safety values among its employeesand contractors.

The 20-hectare site is being developed as a one-stop hub where manufacture, fabrication of aux-iliary equipment, Site Integration Testing (SIT)and mobilisation can be fully integrated. The fa-cility includes a dedicated 130m long quay and a300-tonne crane providing facilities for the re-gions deepwater installation vessels whileoptimising mobilisation cost and time efficiencies.

Flexible pipe has been used successfully formany deep water developments in Asia, but nowthat it can be manufactured and delivered locallymakes the product also becomes a credible alterna-tive to rigid pipeline installed by S-Lay for bothshallow and deep water development. Recent casestudies have shown that flexible pipes can bringsignificant costs savings (20% to 40%) for water,

gas and corrosive production applications of di-ameter 12” or less.

Flexible PipeIn the early 70’s Technip pioneered flexible pipe

design and manufacture and has now accumulatedmore than 35 years of field experience worldwide.

Flexible pipes are key elements for offshore oilproduction, enabling connection of subsea well-head to floating platforms in shallow to ultra deepwater fields. Design of these products is well de-fined in relevant codes and standards such asAPI 17J / ISO 13628-2: “Specification for unbondedflexible pipes” or API RP 17B / ISO 13628-11: “Rec-ommended practice for flexible pipes”.

Flexible pipes are versatile, corrosion resistantproducts that are easy and quick to install, re-trieve and re-use for small, marginal or evolvingfield architectures. They have carved out theirplace not only for floating facilities but also forshallow, medium and deep water field develop-ments that were once the exclusive domain ofrigid steel flowlines.

Since the carbon steel reinforcement wires arenot in direct contact with the conveyed fluid orthe seawater, flexible pipes exhibit excellent cor-rosion resistance and do not require the samelevel of maintenance than rigid pipes, thus reduc-ing OPEX costs for operators.

Flexible pipe can be designed to resist all fluidpressures currently encountered in the most se-vere subsea applications, including kill and chokelines for drilling (up to 15,000psi), to resist to high

SubseaFeature

Asiaflex Products, Technip’s new factory, located in Johor (Malaysia) isprogressing on schedule and is designed to cater to the growing demand fordeep water solutions in Asia-Pacific. It will have a capacity of production of200 km of flexible pipes and umbilicals per annum. This article will give adescription of the factory and its significance to the Asian subsea sector.

TECHNOLOGY

MAY/JUNE 2010 55

annulus where the carbon steel layers are. Thermalinsulation layers can be added to meet specific U-

values. Figure 2 presents somecomplex flexible pipe structureswhich have been specifically de-signed to overcome the chal-lenges of some recent projects.

Asiaflex Products: TheMalaysian Deepwater Hub

Asiaflex Products is located inthe Tanjung Langsat Industrialcomplex, near Johor Bahru Ma-laysia. This strategic locationplaces the manufacturing facility

close to both major international shipping routesand close to the major oil and gas developmentareas of the region, thus considerably reducingcost and lead times.

Asiaflex Products capitalises on the know-howand skilled workforce of Technip which has been

temperature (up to 130 deg C) and for ultra deepwater (up to 3000mwd).

Figure 1 shows typical flexiblepipe construction. Flexible pipesare tailor made to suit the exactrequirements and conditions ofthe development. It is thereforepossible to adjust the internaldiameter of the line to the exactflow assurance requirements.

Depending on the application,the innermost layer would ei-ther be a stainless steel inter-locked carcass for a rough boreflexible pipe or an extruded plas-tic tube for a smooth bore pipe.For a rough bore pipe the carcass provides resist-ance to the hydrostatic collapse or crushing loadsand provides a hard wearing internal surface forpigging requirements and sand erosion resist-ance. Smooth bore pipe are par-ticularly well suited to waterinjection applications.

Pressure sheath is then extrudedon top of this carcass and ensuresinternal fluid containment.

The carbon steel layer above thesheath is the pressure vault whichhas a low pitch to withstand hoopstress due to internal pressure andthen cross wound armour layers,which provides resistance toaxial and end cap effect loads.

The outer jacket is made from an extruded plas-tic sheath which prevents water ingress in the

Figure 1: Typical Flexible Pipe – Rough Bore (Left) and Smooth Bore (Right)

Figure 2: Complex / Tailor-Made Flexible PipeInsulated flexible pipe (left), Smooth Bore High Pressure riser (Center) and IntegratedProduction bundle IPB (Right)

Figure 3 - The strategic location of the Asiaflex Products plant

56 MAY/JUNE 2010 Visit our website at www.safan.comSubseaFeature

continuously developed over the last 35 years. Thisfacility alone will have a manufacturing capacityof 200 km of products per year, supplementingTechnip’s existing capabilities across the world forboth flexible pipe and umbilical products.

Asiaflex Products is Technip’s third flexible pipefactory, coming as an addition to Flexi France, LeTrait, France and Flexibrás, Vitória, Brazil. Since1974, Technip has been producing over 9,000 km ofrisers and flowlines with diameters ranging from2” to 19” internal diameter, with working pressuresup to 20,000 psi, operating temperature up to 130°Cand operating depth to 3,000 m.

Designed to cater for the Asia Pacific and MiddleEast markets and to serve an extensive and diversescope of national or international clients, AsiaflexProducts will use the same qualified raw materialsand manufacturing processes developed by Technipin the last 35 years.

Asiaflex Products will alsobe capable of manufacturingumbilicals, supplementingTechnip’s current umbilicalmanufacturing units Duco Ltdin Newcastle (UK), Duco Inc.in Houston (US) and Angoflexin Lobito (Angola).

The 20-hectare site will be de-veloped as a one-stop hub, where the manufacturingof flexible pipe and umbilicals, the mobilisation oftransportation and installation vessels and the fabri-cation of auxiliary equipment will be fully integrated.This facility, unique to the region, is equipped with adedicated 130 m long quay and a 300-tonne crane,providing facilities for the region’s deepwater instal-lation vessels and making mobilisation both cost andtime effective.

The facility provides the following from a sin-gle site:

• Flexible flowline and riser manufacture from2.5” to 16”o Shallow and deep watero Sour and sweet serviceo Design pressure up to 15,000psio Design temperature from -5°C to 130°C

• Umbilical manufactureo Full range of Technip qualified thermoplastic

hose

o High collapse resistant hoseso Low voltage electrical signal and power cables,

medium voltage power cores, optical fibreso Flying leads

• Fabrication Serviceso Rigid spools, FLET, PLET and in-line tees

• Offshore Baseo Vessel mobilisation and load-out from deep

draft quayo 300-tonne craneo Installation equipment storage and mainte-

nanceo Seafastening services

Manufacturing activities shall progressively startfrom July 2010 after the commissioning phase andsuccessful completion of the manufacturing quali-fication trials. Delivery of the first flexible pipeproject is planned for February 2011.

Benefits for Field Development or FieldRejuvenation in Asia

The fact that flexible pipe can now be manufac-tured in Asia provides the double advantage of lowermanufacturing costs and lower transportation costs,compare to a manufacturing in Europe. Recent casestudies have shown that flexible pipe is a cost effec-tive alternative to conventional rigid pipeline evenfor shallow water application, specially for WaterInjection lines and Gas Injection lines (typically withdiameter less than 12inch) or Production pipelinesdesigned to transport extremely corrosive fluid, withhigh level of H2S or CO2.

The lower CAPEX come from the characteristicsof the flexible pipes, which combines low bendingradius, allowing tight curvature on the seabed andmaking crossing extremely simple and quick instal-lation makes it particularly well suited to field reju-venation or pipeline replacement. Because flexiblepipe comes as a finished product, tested in a factory

Figure 4: Asiaflex Products plant jetty (left) and reel carrier (right)

MAY/JUNE 2010 57

PET

and delivered in a continuous length, laying speedoffshore commonly averages 500 m per hour. Fur-thermore, offshore work is reduced to the strictminimum as direct tie-in to the host removes therequirements for discrete spools and metrology;free span correction is not required, etc thereforeminimising exposure to weather downtime.

Inherent corrosion resistance of the flexible pipealso allows minimisation of the OPEX costs duringservice, as no maintenance is required during serviceand less chemical injection is required. This is par-ticularly true for water injection lines, for which theinner most layer of the flexible pipe is a polyethyleneplastic tube, removing any risk of corrosion.

Moreover, flexible pipe is the only product whichcan be recovered and reinstalled several times to beused successively for several marginal or evolvingfields as regularly done in Brazilian waters.

ConclusionDeveloped in the 70’s, flexible pipes have carved

out their place for all types of subsea develop-ments and are being used everywhere one theglobe, and have proven themselves as a cost ef-fective alternative to rigid steel pipelines. Thenew Technip factory, Asiaflex Products, capableof manufacturing both flexible pipes andumbilicals, will be fully operational by Q3 2010.This state-of-the-art facility, being developed asa one-stop hub where manufacture, fabricationof auxiliary equipment and mobilisation will befully integrated, will re-inforce Technip’s com-mitment to deliver always more cost effectivesolution to its clients in Asia-Pacific, for shallowand deep water developments.

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