This document provides recommendations for material selection, manufacturing and fabrication requirements, testing and qualification of steel structures and components for offshore and onshore petroleum and natural gas facilities operating in Arctic and cold environments.
This document is intended to be used as a supplement to existing standards for steel structures where the particular operating conditions in Arctic regions are not sufficiently addressed.
This document gives particular requirements to ensure safe operation with respect to the risk of brittle fracture at low temperatures. These requirements will affect the selection of material grade and design class as well as the technical delivery conditions for steel. They will also affect the fabrication requirements as well as testing and qualification requirements.
This document also gives recommendations:
— to mitigate the operational and integrity aspects related to snow and ice accretion on topside structures;
— to take into account the particular Arctic operating conditions in corrosion assessments and requirements for corrosion protection systems;
— for particular operational requirements to ensure safe operation in Arctic regions.
The requirements in this document are applicable to any operating temperatures, but particular requirements related to de-rating (loss of strength) at high temperatures are not addressed. Limitations to the applicable minimum design temperature caused by the capability of the materials’ low temperature performance can exist, but are not a limitation for the scope of this document.
As a practical guideline for the use of this document, low temperature is defined as lowest anticipated service temperature (LAST) below –10 °C.