RGCI n286 - Decommissioning of subsea oil and gas production pipelines: hydrodynamic modeling for preliminary assessment of sediment resuspension and burial onto benthic organisms

Revista de Gestão Costeira Integrada
Volume 20, Issue 3, September 2020, Pages 161-168

DOI: 10.5894/rgci-n286
* Submission: 2 SEP 2019; Peer review: 1 MAR 2020; Revised: 2 MAY 2020; Accepted: 2 MAY 2020; Available on-line: 26 AGO 2020

Nota Técnica / Technical Note

Decommissioning of subsea oil and gas production pipelines: hydrodynamic modeling for preliminary assessment of sediment resuspension and burial onto benthic organisms

Pedro Mello Paiva^{@ 1}, Jader Lugon Junior², Emiliano Nicolas Calderon³, Maria Manuela Fraga Juliano⁴, Mauricio Mussi Molisani^1,3

^@Corresponding author: pedromellopaiva@gmail.com
¹ Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Ambientais e Conservação, Instituto de Biodiversidade e Sustentabilidade (NUPEM), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)
² Programa de Pós-graduação em Engenharia Ambiental, Instituto Federal Fluminense-Macaé. Email: jlugonjr@gmail.com
³ Instituto de Biodiversidade e Sustentabilidade (NUPEM), UFRJ. Email: emilianocalderon@icloud.com; molisanimm@yahoo.com.br
⁴ Instituto do Mar, Universidade do Açores. E-mail: manuela.juliano@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Many offshore oil and gas fields in Brazil are reaching the end of their economic productive life, which has increasing the demand for decisions about decommissioning of the offshore exploration structures such as subsea pipelines. However, removing, retaining or relocating subsea infrastructure have potential impacts on the marine environment caused by seabed perturbation. Using the MOHID hydrodynamic software, this study simulated resuspension, similar to those caused by pipelines recovery operations, and estimated the deposited particle layer onto rhodoliths and deep-water coral in continental shelf and slope in different sediment grain-size typologies. According to the proposed scenarios, simulation of resuspension indicated that particle deposition exceeded the burial thresholds (5.0 mm to rhodoliths and 6.3 mm for deep-water corals), while only in the continental shelf with fine sand seabed, the subsea pipeline removing didn't represent burial risk for considered benthic organisms.

Keywords: MOHID, Sediment, Campos Basin, Rhodoliths, Deep-water Coral.

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Volume 20, Issue 3 - September 2020

Nota Técnica / Technical Note

Decommissioning of subsea oil and gas production pipelines: hydrodynamic modeling for preliminary assessment of sediment resuspension and burial onto benthic organisms