WO2008002172A1 - Complex for developing undersea mineral deposits - Google Patents

Abstract

The aim of the invention is to form conditions for developing mineral deposits at a depths unaccessible to any type of platforms by transferring waterproof chambers containing facilities and connected to said chambers waterproof enclosures with a transport system pipelines and waterproof enclosures with power control cables, in such a way that they are operational even at unfavorable meteorological conditions or not practicable ice fields and icebergs. The essence of the invention consists in that the displacement of the waterproof chambers containing facilities and the connected to said chambers waterproof enclosures with a transport systempipelines and waterproof enclosures with power control cables is carried out after the connection of successive sections of the transport system in an assembling shop, and the adjustment of the immersion depth of the undersea structures of the complex is carried out by repeatedly switching-on pumps used for the metering pumping of a liquid inside pontoon units which are connected to the pipelines of the transport system of the complex.

Description

 COMPLEX FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERWATER DEPOSITS OF USEFUL FOSSILS.

The technical field to which the invention relates. The invention relates to the field of designing equipment for the development of such natural resources of the oceans as oil and gas from wells, as well as tin, gold, platinum, zirconium, rutile, ilmenite, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, ferrous sands and many other minerals from alluvial underwater deposits.

The prior art. It is known that by the end of the seventies of the twentieth century, more than 20 percent of all oil extracted on Earth and about 10 percent of natural gas were recovered from the seas. Specialists of the United States of America are considered to be pioneers of oil production from under the sea. After the oil crisis of the seventies of the twentieth century, they began to develop offshore fields off the Mexican coast. Offshore drilling (this is the exploration and production of oil and gas in the oil fields, the so-called offshore zones) mainly uses offshore drilling rigs, which are conventionally divided into two classes - floating and stationary (fixed). One offshore platform is under construction for two to three years and its cost, depending on the class, reaches up to 500 million US dollars. The construction of a platform designed for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons from under the bottom of the seas, on the surface of which ice fields form, will cost the customer as much as 700 million US dollars. The production and transportation of oil and gas from subsea deposits requires the creation of a complex diversified economy. In addition to drilling equipment, it includes oil and gas intake, transport and storage devices. Oil and gas from subsea fields are produced using serial oil and gas intake equipment. However, as the depth of development increases, as well as in the waters of seas with moving ice fields the preferred method is the location of the wellhead equipment at the bottom. This method was first applied in 1943 when drilling an oil well on Lake Erie. Currently, the method of underwater wellhead equipment is used to depths of 150 meters, but oil and gas deposits have been discovered at depths of 1000 meters, the development of which is only advisable underwater. The method of developing oil and gas fields with the wellhead equipment at the bottom allows you to reduce costs, which means that it is possible to develop fields with small reserves. Underwater equipment located at the bottom is protected from adverse weather events on the surface of the water, and also it cannot be damaged by moving icebergs. The possibility of oil and gas leaks is reduced, and, therefore, the solution to the problem of preventing water pollution is improved. The method of wellhead equipment at the bottom allows you to determine the operational parameters and characteristics of the field in the early stages of development, which creates the conditions for making a decision on putting the field into operation in stages. For transporting oil and gas extracted from the subsea field over short distances, especially in the ice conditions of the Arctic seas, the use of pipeline systems is preferred. One of the main advantages of pipeline systems is the continuity of the transportation process and independence from weather conditions. Pipeline transport was widely used in the development of subsea deposits of the North Sea. In the second half of the seventies of the 20th century, pipeline transport was used at the largest North Sea field - EcoFix, associated with six other fields in the area. There is a pipeline with a length of 440 kilometers with a wall thickness in the offshore part of 22.2 millimeters, and in the coastal part - 25 millimeters. - -

40 million cubic meters of gas are passed through the pipeline daily. Corrosion insulation and cathodic protection protect the pipeline from corrosion. The necessary negative buoyancy of the pipeline is provided by the concrete coating, which is also intended for additional isolation of the pipeline from mechanical damage. A horizontal section of the pipeline located at the bottom of the sea is connected to a vertical riser on the platform using cameras immersed from the platform. Vertical sections of the pipeline, located on the platform, are protected from corrosion and mechanical damage by steel casings filled with cement mortar. In the sixties of the 20th century, the attention of mankind was attracted by the ores of the oceans and especially two types of deposits with a multimetal composition - nodule deposits in the central regions of the oceans and metal-bearing silts in some faults of the seabed. Amazing mineral formations were found in soil samples raised from the bottom of the ocean in the last quarter of the 20th century. The honor of this discovery belongs to the employees of the English oceanographic expedition on the Challenger corvette. In shape, these formations were similar to potatoes, had a dark color, layered structure, low strength. Chemical analyzes of nodules revealed an increased content of iron, manganese, copper, nickel and many other rare and trace elements. The depths at which nodules were discovered are several thousand meters. The richest sites are found at depths from 4000 to 6000 meters in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. American researchers have identified deposits of nodules near the US coast at depths of only 500 - 1000 meters, but these nodules are poor in composition with valuable elements. Based on geological and oceanological data on the density of nodules in various regions of the oceans, general areas of their distribution and estimated reserves. On one square meter of the bottom, there can be from several grams to several tens of kilograms of nodules. The content in prospective deposits is an average of 10 kilograms of nodules per square meter of bottom. The first application in international practice for the development of minerals in the open ocean outside the jurisdiction of the state was submitted in 1974 by the company Deep Ventures. Documents were presented on the discovery in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 3,500 to 5,500 meters of a field with an area of 60 thousand square kilometers with coordinates: 15 degrees north latitude and 127 degrees west longitude. Studies have shown that deposits of nodules and metal-bearing silts in deep-sea trenches can be considered promising for development. For development, a deposit of nodules lying on the bottom surface in the form of a monolayer, and metal-bearing silts that fill the bottom cracks and depressions with a layer of several tens of meters are selected. These differences in the nature of the occurrence of deposits of two types affect the choice of design of production facilities. At the same time, it is also taken into account that nodules and metal-bearing silts occur in soils, which are relatively easily subjected to loosening and scooping. Fundamental technical solutions for the creation of installations for the extraction of nodules began to offer in the sixties of the 20th century. The mechanical system provided for lowering dredges - drags on the cable, scooping nodules from the bottom of the ocean and lifting the filled bucket to the surface. The hydraulic system required a bottom device designed to collect nodules from the adjacent bottom area and pump along with water through pipelines to a production vessel. The design of nodules, according to the designers, could also be carried out from autonomous vehicles (such as submarines). Metallic sludge was supposed to be mined air-lift and pump types. According to rough estimates, profitable production can be provided by an enterprise that annually produces 3 million tons of dry nodules. The Russian joint-stock company “Lazyrit” has developed the “Method for integrated field underwater development of offshore fields), for which the patent RU N ° 2014243 was published, published on June 15, 1994 in the Bulletin of the Russian Federation Patent and Trademark Committee NsI 1. This invention relates to the development of deposits at sea depths under difficult meteorological conditions, including the ice regions of the Arctic, for example, the Shtokman offshore gas condensate field with a sea depth of 300-350 meters in this region. In the area of the proposed production, a bottom plate should be installed on the seabed, in which wells are developed using an offshore drilling platform or a drilling vessel. Wellhead equipment, fountain fittings, pipelines are installed on the bottom plate. At the minimum permissible distance from the bottom plate, fishing processing units are installed at anchor links, which, depending on the state of the sea and ice conditions, are maintained at the required depth. The processing fishery blocks are connected to the bottom plate by the production line for supplying the production product to them and with the transport line for supplying the production product to the consumer. Constant integrated support for underwater fishing is carried out using a supporting vessel and underwater vehicles. The displacement of the submarine supply vessel is about 5000 tons, length 119 meters, width 11 meters, autonomy of its work 40 days, immersion depth 500 meters. The ship has a bell for delivery of service personnel under water, as well as life support equipment, autonomous apparatus for inspection of underwater structures and communications, for transportation -O- divers, staff evacuation. In addition, the vessel is equipped with an inhabited working underwater apparatus for installation and repair work, a gripping device for lifting and transporting goods, as well as a diving complex for operations at depths of up to 500 meters. However, as noted by the authors of the “Method for underwater mining of minerals)), for which patent RU 2166065 was issued in 2001, one of the disadvantages of the technical solution according to patent RU 2014243 is that surface floating components of the technological complex have insufficient reliability when interacting with powerful ice due to their necessary anchoring to the bottom of the reservoir, as well as low functionality due to the lack of means of direct technological interaction with coastal technical E services. To eliminate these shortcomings, the inventors according to patent RU 2166065 developed a technological complex for underwater mining of minerals, which contains a bottom base plate, on which there are seats for installing an underwater technological module, made in the form of an underwater vessel, equipped with a drilling and / or production (fountain) equipment. The subsea drilling technology module may not be self-propelled, but for this option vehicles should be provided for delivering the module and installing it on the bottom base plate. Delivery of consumables, items of equipment and crew to underwater technological modules is carried out using an underwater support vessel. Minerals are transported from underwater technological modules to the shore of the reservoir and further to the consumer through trunk pipelines using pumping stations located on the underwater drilling module and / or on the base stationary technological platform and / or onshore technological station. The basic stationary technological platform can be installed at the bottom of the reservoir in the immediate vicinity of the coast. In a preferred embodiment, the base stationary technological platform is installed at the bottom of the reservoir between the location of the bottom base plates of the underwater technological modules and the location of the coastal technological station, selected from the condition of minimizing the wave and ice load on its body and the shortest total distance to the bottom base plates. In this case, the basic stationary technological platform is carried out by the underwater and surface parts, and their parameters are selected from the condition that it is possible to maneuver and process the underwater drilling technological modules, underwater support vessels, as well as surface ships. The initial delivery of consumables, items of equipment and crew to the base stationary technological platform and / or onshore technological station, as well as transportation between them is carried out by submarine and / or surface ships, air and / or land, as well as underground vehicles. The primary industrial processing and storage of minerals, as well as the processing or destruction of associated gases, taking into account environmental requirements, can be carried out both on the base stationary technological platform and on the coastal technological station. Despite the attractiveness of the technical solutions implemented in the invention according to the patent RU 2166065, it has to be stated that the authors were not able to solve the problem of isolating all fishing equipment from the effects of adverse meteorological processes above the sea surface due to the presence of a basic stationary technological platform, the designs of which must withstand extensive ice fields, and .

-8- also icebergs. In addition, neither the invention of the patent RU 2014243, nor the invention of the patent RU 2166065 solved the problem of delivery and installation of support bottom plates on the sea. In order to eliminate the noted drawbacks, a complex has been proposed for the development of underwater mineral deposits, the design of which cannot be affected by moving ice fields, icebergs, as well as typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami waves, “wave-ybits” above the surface of the water.

Disclosure of the invention.

The complex for the development of subsea mineral deposits includes an assembly building designed for the gradual build-up of corrosion-protected pipelines, inside of which sealed capsules will be moved with the materials required for the equipment to operate in the head of the complex, and during the operation of the field, they will also be used to transport extracted minerals fossils on the coast. At the same time as the technological pipelines are being built up, the covers for power cables are designed to supply electricity to the equipment in the head of the complex, to all life support systems of people who will work in the head of the complex, and to each pontoon unit, as well as covers for the remote cables management of all equipment. Moving in the underwater position of the head of the complex along with pontoon blocks and casings for pipelines and cables from the location of the mounting case on land or at the floating base to the planned landing site of the head of the complex to the bottom is carried out by controlling the operation of the thrusters available on each pontoon block, or submarines docked with the head of the complex through the docking nodes. On fit. 1 shows a block diagram of the placement of modules of the complex for development of submarine mineral deposits. The mounting case 1 is shown in a variant of its placement on land. The head part 2 of the complex with equipment for drilling and construction of wells, as well as a supply of pipes, couplings, drill bits and other consumable products and materials in the case of oil, gas, or with equipment for sucking water together with nodules or silt in the case of solid minerals has tight connections with all pipelines of the transport system 3. Throughout the transport system 3 from its exit from the mounting housing to the landing site of the head part 2 on the bottom 4 are pontoon Loki 5, with ties 6, designed for reliable connection of pontoon blocks 5 with casings of pipelines of the transport system 3. At least two submarines 7 are constantly docked with the head part of the complex 2, designed to accommodate people who are free from shift, as well as to ensure all equipment the underwater part of the complex with electricity during periods of termination of power supply of equipment from the installation complex. The head part 2 has at least four lock devices for docking submarines with it. The best embodiment of the invention. Placing the mounting case 1 on land allows you to create conditions for the exploration of underwater mineral deposits, as well as for their subsequent development during any meteorological processes over water all year round, as the head of the complex and the transport system 3 connected to it are promoted together with control and power cables in the bottom layers of water. The head part 2 of the complex for the development of submarine mineral deposits is built, tested and submerged in a special pool located inside the mounting building 1. In the same place, the structures of the transport system 3 are connected to the head part 2, and shrouds with power and control cables. To ensure the buoyancy of the head part 2 of the complex, the estimated number of pontoon blocks 5 is connected to it. As the length of the transport system 3 increases, the next pontoon blocks are lowered into the pool and reliably connected to the pipe covers using couplers 6. The buoyancy control of the head part of the complex 2 and connected to of the constructions of the transport system 3, as well as the casings with power and control cables, are provided by applying the method of dosed pumping of liquid from pinto tankless tanks 5 blocks to the Kingston tanks of these blocks and vice versa. This method is disclosed in the description of the invention to patent RU N ° 2246421, which was published on February 20, 2005 in the Bulletin of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks of the Russian Federation N ° 5. The design of the pontoon blocks 5, shown in the description of the invention to the patent RU JNi-2246421, provides placement in bathyscaphes of aquanauts, or remote control of the equipment of each pontoon block. When using these pontoon blocks to control the buoyancy of the head part 2 of the complex for the development of submarine mineral deposits, as well as the entire transport system 3, remote control of the equipment of each pontoon block from the mounting building 1 and from the submarines 7 docked with the head part allows at any time work of the complex to send to each pontoon unit 5 a command in the form of electrical pulses for pumping liquid from one tank to another in order to change the melt esti this pontoon unit, causing a change in its relative level of the water surface. By repeatedly dosing the amount of pumped liquid inside the pontoon blocks, it is possible to maintain a cost-effective profile of the entire transport system 3, which will avoid sharp deflections of the casings and pipelines when they cross the lowerings and elevations of the bottom. The use of a remote buoyancy control system for each pontoon unit 5 makes it possible to lift the head part 2 and the entire transport system 3 of the complex for the development of an underwater mineral deposit with its subsequent movement to a new landing site for the head part 2 to the bottom. The delivery of pipes and other products and materials necessary for drilling and equipping next wells is carried out in capsules, which are moved inside the pipes of the transport system 3 by creating a difference in air pressure from different sides of the sealing cuffs, on the surface of the capsules. Air supply to the pipes is always carried out from the side of the mounting case I _5, and to move the capsule from the mounting case 1 to the head part 2 of the complex, air is injected under pressure into the tube in which the capsule is located, and to move the capsule from the head part 2 of the complex to the mounting case 1 compressed air is introduced into the capsule-free pipe so that after the air stream enters the head of the complex, it can be directed into the pipe with the capsule from the side of the head part 2 of the complex. To reduce the resistance to movement of the capsule on its outer surface place supports in contact with the guide rails inside the pipe. After the development of the underwater mineral deposit is completed, all the equipment of the complex can be returned to the mounting case 1 by gradually pulling into the mounting case 1 the next sections of the transport system 3 together with the pontoon blocks 5. In order for the next sections of the transport system 3 and the pontoon to be pulled into the mounting case 1 blocks 5 were not damaged by the enclosing structures of the underwater gates of the mounting case 1, remotely control the operation of the steering systems on the pontoon blocks. Industrial applicability of the invention. The complex for the development of submarine mineral deposits will be widely used in many countries of the world for the following reasons: 1) the process of moving all the equipment of the complex to the place of landing of its head part to the bottom does not depend on hurricanes, waves, “waves”, “wave-waves”, and also from ice conditions on the surface of the water, which will allow to carry out these works year-round, that is, without downtime of equipment and people; 2) the arrangement of the transport system simultaneously with the movement of the head to the desired area of the sea creates conditions for the year-round delivery of any extracted minerals to consumers on the coast immediately after the start of the operation of the head of the complex; 3) the use of specialized submarines with nuclear reactors on board, designed at the stage of moving all the equipment of the complex to maintain the direction of this movement by docking with the head of the complex at least two submarines, allows you to deliver the head of the complex to the desired area of the sea, and shift-free shift workers will be able to rest in comfortable landscaped boat compartments during the field development process; after completion of the shift, they will be delivered ashore in one from boats, leaving at least two boats docked with the head of the complex;

4) the ability to move the head of the complex along with all the equipment of the transport system by controlling the buoyancy of the pontoon blocks with remote control of their work allows the extraction of the entire intended volume of minerals in a given area of the sea by one complex, and then return all the underwater equipment of the complex to the installation building and store it before use in new areas of the sea or transport it to another place;

5) no need to have ships or platforms above points placement of underwater equipment will allow to extract minerals from such depths at which the work of known equipment is not possible.

Sources of information: '1. Patent RU 2014243 Cl 5 В 63 В 35/44, В 63 G 8/00 was published on June 15, 1994 in the Bulletin of the Committee of the Russian Federation for Patents and Trademarks JVs 11.

2. Patent RU 2166065 C2 E 21 In 43/01 published on 04/27/2001 by the Russian Agency for Patents and Trademarks. 3. Patent RU 2246421 C2 В 63 С 7/08 was published on February 20, 2005 in the Bulletin of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks N ° 5.

Claims

CLAIM: 1. A complex for the development of underwater mineral deposits, including an assembly building on a floating base on the high seas, on the island or on the coast, designed for the manufacture, testing and launching of pressurized chambers with equipment located inside, as well as pressurized casings connected to these chambers pipelines and casings with power and control cables, characterized in that the head of the complex is moved underwater from the location of the mounting housing to the specified coordinates of the bottom by periodically turning on the thrusters of pontoon blocks designed to support all underwater structures of the complex at calculated elevations relative to sea level, while gradually increasing the length of the transport system of the complex by adding regular sections to it inside the mounting case, and to maintain the course of the complex’s movement use at least two submarines that are constantly docked with its head part and provide power supply to the equipment inside cameras and in each pontoon unit during interruptions in the supply of electricity from the installation case, with the possibility of controlling the operation of all the underwater equipment of the complex not only from the installation case, but also from submarines docked through the gateway devices to the head of the complex, resulting in delivery equipment and materials for exploration and mining and subsequent transportation of extracted minerals is carried out in case of any adverse meteorological x processes above the surface of the water, in the presence of icebergs and impassable ice fields.