TechnipFMC platform offers support to subsea tiebacks
Houston-based marine and naval engineers at TechnipFMC are exploring low-cost options for platforms to support long subsea tiebacks. Although using subsea tiebacks can be less expensive than a standalone facility, if used in remote areas tiebacks' cost can increase dramatically because of their requirements for power, equipment and processing. TechnipFMC's new platform, the Extended Draft Platform (EDP) buoy has three columns and a "very deep" submerged pontoon, and it can be easily manoeuvred, set up and eventually can self-install. 

Marine and naval engineers in Houston are working on a variety of fresh designs targeted to suit today’s era of flexible and low-cost development.

One example comes via a team from TechnipFMC, which pitched an unmanned, three-column semi-submersible platform aimed at supporting subsea systems with long tiebacks, in a paper presented at the 2017 Society of Naval Architects & Marine Engineers (Sname) symposium in Houston.

While subsea tiebacks save the expense of a standalone facility, requirements for power and processing can drive up costs in remote areas, especially when fitting such equipment to function in thousands of feet of water.

“Many