Novel Foundation Concept for a Jacket Finding Its Place

A major departure from traditional foundation practice for steel jackets has been developed based on the experience with skirts for huge concrete gravity platforms. The method, using plate-skirt foundations or perhaps better described as “skirted mudmats” or skirtpiles, will provide bearing capacity for compressive loads in the same way as gravity structures. Overturning uplift forces will be resisted by suction. This is a new concept in sand, and has been verified by offshore field tests and onshore laboratory tests. This is a description of the philosophy and efforts behind the development. The principles will be applied for the Europipe riser platform at Norwegian block 16/11.