lifeLine JIP

Floating production systems stay at fixed positions year after year without regular dry docking. To ensure station keeping, these units are equipped with mooring systems which must be able to withstand harsh weather loadings. Mooring systems are exposed to a wide variety of environmental conditions. Deterioration of the mooring lines over time will result in a lower resistance against breakage. Moreover, failure mechanisms that were not anticipated during design, such as Out-of-Plane Bending, result in higher loads than were predicted resulting in a reduced mooring line reliability.

As a result, mooring incidents have been occurring at high rate during the past decade. More than twenty incidents have happened to production vessels that are moored on-site for prolonged duration. Some of these incidents were of high consequence, such as causing the vessel to drift a short distance, riser ruptures and production shutdown. These incidents are raising concerns for owners and operators.