New Edition of the NORSOK U-001 for Subsea Production Systems

NORSOK U-001 4^th edition was released October 1st, 2015. It replaces edition 3 from 2002. The 4^th edition is based on industry experience and use of the previous version. With focus on Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) operations and experience, NORSOK U-001 provides normative reference and amendments to selected parts of ISO 13628 (equivalent to API 17 series). The focus areas of this paper are the informative annexes to NORSOK U-001: The revised Annex A (informative), and the new Annex B (informative). These annexes provide NCS related amendments to Part 4 (API 17D), Part 7 (API 17G), and Part 15 (API 17P) of ISO 13628. Annex A (informative) provides loads for design and selection of subsea trees, wellheads and templates and has been completely revised with new standard design loads. Annex B (informative) gives recommendations for structural design, manufacture and testing of subsea wellhead and tree equipment (ISO 13628-4/API 17D) and completion/workover riser systems (ISO 13628-7/API 17G). This paper provides a brief introduction and background to Annex A and Annex B. Some differences between NORSOK U-001 Annex B, ISO 13628-7 (API 17G), ISO 10423 (API 6A), API 6X, ISO 13628-4 (API 17D), ASME VIII Div. 3 and ASME VIII Div.2 are also highlighted.