The platform was equipped with a total of four firewater pumps, constantly on standby in case of fire, and ready to be deployed within seconds. As all were reported to be leaking, the lack of a 100% fire system redundancy created significant safety issues on the platform. Each pump’s cooling system consisted of a heat exchanger between the internal cooling liquid and sea water. The outlet of the sea water system cooling the heat exchanger required back pressure to avoid damaging to the pumps during start-up, achieved by connecting each pump to a common manifold and a 6 meter, 16” vertical upward pipe before the outlet. Valves were not present on any of the pump outlet spools, so the leakages could not be addressed without a full production shutdown. Other types of isolations such as plugging or freezing methods were evaluated by the customer and deemed unsuitable.
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