The International Marine Contractors Association’s (IMCA) announced launch of a new ‘Code of Practice for Offshore Pipeline and Umbilical Installation Systems’. The new Code of Practice includes all equipment required to lay the product safely and effectively in an offshore marine environment.
The launch follows the establishment of a workgroup, in April 2019, by IMCA’s Marine Division Management Committee to focus on developing a code of practice for offshore pipelines and umbilical installation systems.
Then, the workgroup brought together pipelaying contractors, including Allseas, Subsea 7, McDermott, Saipem and TechnipFMC, who share knowledge and best practice in order to establish a standard for the industry. This has resulted in the publication of the new ‘Code of Practice for Offshore Pipeline and Umbilical Installation Systems’.
We set out to create guidance that would define the minimum requirements for installation of offshore pipeline and umbilical systems. Our focus was on the laying spread, the vessel on which the laying spread is installed, and the interface between the vessel and the laying spread,
…stated Raymond Vink, Engineering Manager at Allseas, who chaired the workgroup.
The new Code is applicable to all types of vessels that lay pipelines and umbilicals in an offshore environment, addressing the unnecessary and potentially harmful tendency to apply overloads as part of system acceptance protocols on a project by project basis, rather than to utilise recent available and verifiable test records. As such, the code leveraged experience gained over the recent decades during which many thousand of km of pipelines and umbilicals have been installed in the offshore environment.
In the last 18 months the workgroup held 22 committee meetings which demonstrates the importance of this work in our industry and goes to show what can be achieved when we put determined, expert minds onto a problem to be solved,
…added Mark Ford, Technical Director at IMCA.
