LOKTEV ANDREY
AMIGE, Russia

Preparation of international normative titled “Marine Soil Investigation” was started in May 2007.

It performs by group of experts from more than 20 countries, on behalf of Technical Committee TC67, subcommittee SC7 (ISO/TC67/SC7). It is planned the project to be completed by issue of the standard of ISO series 19900 in 2010.

The standard to be applicable for Russian practice if it is adopt. When existing inner standards are not actually obligatory accordingly to the Russian Federal Law “On Technical regulation” [1, 2], the ISO standard can became a legitimate and official document for offshore investigations in Russia.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) joints companies, institutes, enterprises involved in standardization business. ISO includes 158 national organizations – members (as well as regional, interstate and other associations, institutes). 181 technical committees (TC) work for the Organization. Each committee can account from few to about ten subcommittees (SC) and working groups (WG). Over 50 thousand of experts of different countries and companies work as experts for the ISO (www.iso.org).

Federal Agency on technical regulation and metrology (Rostechregulirovanie) presents Russian Federation in the ISO. Russia is one of the participation countries and takes part at ISO projects including TC 67 “Materials, equipment and offshore structures for petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries”. The main goal of the Technical Committee is standardization in the area of equipment, materials and marine constructions for exploration, production, transportation of hydrocarbons.

Working Group (WG 398) was established for systematization and development of uniform standard for investigation of soil section, which is a natural foundation for marine constructions. The WG 398 links to the SC7 (Offshore constructions) of Technical Panel TP4 ISO. “Arctic Marine Engineering Geological Expeditions” (JSC AMIGE) presents Russia in the project.

Norwegian Standard NORSOK G-001 with the same title was taken as a basement of the new international normative however other literature and documents to be used and applied. NORSOK has some obvious advantages:

it is well developed, covers practically all activities and has been re-issued (in other words has some practical usage and reply) so can became a basis for the new normative. And it was titled as a Draft International Standard (DIS) at the first document voting.

There are some other very useful and applicable documents for offshore surveys, for example:

API RP2A – Planning, Designing and Constructing Fixed Offshore Platforms. – standard of American Petroleum Institute- authorized representative of National standardization institute (ANSI) as a part of ISO.
Eurocode 7 – Geotechnical design. General Rules (EN1997-1:2004). Documents of European Committee of standardization (СEN).
ISSMGE: Geotechnical and Geophysical Investigations for Offshore and Nearshore Developments (2005).
Guidance Notes on Geotechnical Investigations for Marine Pipelines. Rev. 3 (2004). Guidance Notes on Geotechnical Investigations for Subsea Structures. Rev.2 (2000): SUT – OSIG (Offshore Site Investigation Group).
DNV Classification Note 30.4 – Foundations (Feb, 2004).

SP 11-114-2004. Code of practice. Site investigation on the continental shelf for offshore oil and gas facilities constructions. Gosstroi, Moscow, 2004. The standard was issued for development of normatives for engineering surveys (SNiP 11-02-96) and substituted VSN 51.2.84 after some actual experience and new technical possibilities. It includes geotechnical, metocean, navigation surveys, i.e. can be used not only for soil investigation.

This new developing standard is planned as a universal document for engineering-geological (geotechnical) investigation and can be used for various marine constructions (independently on research stage, region, foundation etc). Area of its implementation will be most probably limited within just geotechnical surveys and not geophysical (it can dramatically delays and complicates the project if includes ).

There are main directions and sections of the project (standard):
1. Objectives and planning
2. General requirements
3. Drilling and logging
4. Sampling
5. In situ testing
6. Laboratory testing
7. Reporting

Main questions of project preparation and implementation to be highlighted in the section Objectives and planning. But final decision on description of detail scope of work in the document was not done yet, because scope is multi factored point. Probably some recommendations and references to normatives, guidances, standards will be included for different foundations. The section should also include description of standard documents used for geotechnical projects, like: Project Execution Plan (PEP), Soil Investigation Execution Plan (SIEP), Project Management and Organization Plan (PMOP), Quality Assurance Plan (QAP), Health, Safety and Environment (HSE), Emergency Response Plan (ERP) , in other words docuemnts partly link to Program and Technical specification in Russian practice.

General requirements are divided into organization and technical safety requirements. The first covers project execution in accordance with local regulations, permitting, following to legislation, marine safety requirements (SOLAS), usage of certified equipment etc. Technical specifications define methodology of work (including requirement for accuracy of positioning, water depth measurements, soil samples disturbance etc). They also describe general requirements for safe work, health of personnel and environment

Drilling is one of the main ways of soil section investigation. Questions of preparation, choosing of drill equipment and rigs are considered here. Boring and sampling methodology applicable for planned work targets are detalized in the section. Drill mud, grouting, borehole construction are described as well. The section puts attention on specific questions: boring control, borehole bottom, offshore geohazards (for example, shallow gas, permafrost). It is assumed the section appendix methodological and organization topics to be highlighted here in details. Still it is under discussion if the section shall also include geophysical investigation along boreholes (logging).

Main methods of soil testing “in massive” are described in the section In situ : cone penetration test, dynamic sounding, standard penetration test, vane, pressuremeter etc. Requirements for the tests preparation, equipment calibration, consequence of implementation, basement of test results processing and interpretation are presented in the section (mostly for CPT). The tests applicability and obtaining parameters would be a part of the document. It is planned to include detail bibliography regarding to the in situ tests.

Description of samplers models, requirements, applicability, methodology of sampling, storage, transportation of specimens are considered in section Sampling. Requirement for lab testing is defined in the according part. Because of amount of theoretical and practical background information it is assumed to put general information with references to various normative and methodological literature. The list of described lab tests and parameters will not be limited by geotechnical but paleontological and mineralogical ones as well.

Data processing and reporting is the final stage of soil investigation. It is proposed to highlight general topics of report preparation based on geotechnical data including geophysical (shallow profiling etc) methods. The main results of geotechnical survey are index properties, design parameters, data representation estimation.

Real experience recognized various differences between Russian and Western offshore practices. The differences link to project preparation, execution and results as well as terminology, preferences, methods evaluation and data presentation ways. Obviously for Russian offshore practice it would be very useful to adopt advances of international technologies and experiences to increase efficiency and competitiveness at common integration.
The project was planned to be completed by draft standard preparation in the beginning of 2009. Then it should be discussed among ISO members, changed by the end of 2009 - the beginning of 2010. Voting of the documents was planned early 2010 and then its issue in May 2010. Most probably the schedule will be changed and corrected because of current delay (organization problems and experts business).

Literature
Changes of Federal Law №65-FZ “On Technical Regulation”. 2007.
Federal Law №184-FZ “On Technical Regulation”. 2002.

Oil and gas of Arctic shelf 2008