Swivel Connection Development

The information contained herein is the confidential property of GE Oil & Gas and its affiliates, is to be used only for the benefit of GE Oil & Gas and shall not be reproduced or used for any other purpose without written consent of GE Oil & Gas. Abstract The required adaptability of the production systems to field evolution presents the flexible flowlines as a suitable solution, with advantages to rigid pipelines. The usage of flexible flowlines associated to the challenges of deep and ultra-deep water explorations and increment of Working Pressure promotes the metal-to-metal swivel connections to required components for subsea equipment, leading installation reliability and assuring operational confidence. In order to reduce operational risks during pipelines and in-lines installations, different designs of Swivel connections had been used on the last 10 years. All designs had the same concept of a Metal-to-Metal Seal with an energizing system that add some risk to the system and requires ROV operations. The present work shows a new Swivel concept for 2500 meter of water depth and 10,000psi of working pressure, that uses a Metal-to-Metal Seal on seat and not require a ROV intervention. On this concept, the Metal-to-Metal Seal run during the installation on energized position and allow relative movement between the inlet and outlet Swivel connection. Also, this kind of concept permit to work with one Metal-to-Metal Seal design for different Swivel sizes, which means that the deliverable time for the Swivel could be reduced and make easier the maintainability of the Swivel connection.