Fundamentals of Subsea Systems

20 September 2016
Venue: Subsea UK, 26 Abercrombie Court, Westhill, AB32 6FE

Venue: Subsea UK meeting room, 26 Abercrombie Court, Westhill

The course

The origins of the subsea sector go back as far as 1940. However, until 1978, subsea systems were quite rudimentary and certainly not suited to the demands of current production systems, nor the environment. All that changed in 1978 through the introduction of what was considered at the time to be highly innovative game changing technology, which radically changed the way in which the industry thinks and operates.

Today we see projects exploiting valuable reserves in depths extending to some 3,000 metres in harsh and highly complex environments. These achievements are based on solid foundations set out some 45 years ago but in applications that were not thought possible until recently.

Modern subsea production systems are highly sophisticated and use advanced technologies, well beyond even those envisaged by anyone in the early days of subsea development. This use of advanced technologies and the mass of strategic knowledge that has been built up has accelerated the development of deepwater fields around the world, where the UK is a leading player with world class skills and knowledge, as well as products.

This short one-day course has been specially developed to provide a broad but in-depth overview of the sector, both from a UK perspective, and as a global sector and shares useful insights into the state of the art in subsea engineering & technology. It will cover aspects of how subsea fields are developed, and how subsea systems are designed, installed, operated and decommissioned.

The course leader

Alistair Birnie is an EDB Professor of Subsea Engineering at the National University of Singapore where he specialises in Subsea Systems and Subsea Construction, teaching MSc level graduates and managing research programmes in the field of ultra-deep water operations.

With some 35 years industry experience in subsea and offshore engineering as a graduate of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon Universities and as a Chartered Engineer, he is also Managing Director of Denmore Technologies Ltd; a specialist subsea systems, consultancy and training provider based in Aberdeen.

He also worked for organisations including Subsea UK, Aker Solutions, ITF, Schlumberger Subsea, Nautronix, NOV Varco, Fugro Subsea and Marconi Underwater Systems.