Arctic projects are characterized by a very short installation season with an unpredictable begin and end, as well as large lo-gistical distances. In particular pipelay and pipe burial are a concern as these are time consuming processes. The deployment of multiple units for completing the work within the narrow time frame available involves significant mobilization and de-mobilization costs, as for many Arctic developments the nearest offshore equipment deployment area during the rest of the year is far away. Additionally, the costs of standby whilst waiting for break-up of the ice are high for such a vessel spread. The paper presents a novel concept of pipelay using large floating exchangeable reels which concept is anticipated to be sig-nificantly faster than S-lay. Moreover, it needs only a small construction crew in the field and is competitive with S-lay on costs. For the economic viability of such a fast pipelay concept, it is essential that an Arctic pipelay market of sufficient volume will develop, in order to allow depreciation over a number of projects. The fast pipelay concept proposed can also be deployed outside the Arctic on projects having a scope comparable with the example project described.
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