Drilling for petroleum beneath the sea has increased tremendously in the last fifty years. Now a days offshore activities take place in water more than half of the nations on the earth. Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum. Drill ships, offshore platforms and subsea equipment are the drilling units to extract petroleum. In drilling process some of drilling units needs to be placed or landed on the top of the sea bed, in this case direct landing or placing on seabed cause problems for drilling operation. To avoid this case mudmats are used to place in-between drilling equipment and seabed. Without mudmat drilling equipment operation is difficult, there will be problems due to lateral loads on structures and seabed soil properties. Mudmat can be defined as the structure used to prevent offshore structures from sinking into soft unconsolidated soil on the seabed. In the present study key role of mudmat in drilling operation and mudmat design considerations are discussed.
Drilling, mudmat, seabed, subsea equipment
