Ravva - Cairn’s first development success story has been the bedrock of innovation, and the foundation of our success story in the country and the region. Ravva, which in Sanskrit and Telegu means “diamond” showcases the journey of growth that Cairn has been able to achieve in its business. Incidentally, Ravva is the only field in India to get such a unique name indicating the belief of the nation in it.

1.
RAVVA
Celebrating 16 Years of Technical Excellence
Pipeline Project

2. RAVVA – Celebrating 16 years of Technical Excellence
Pioneering Development
Ravva Pipeline Project
Prior to the commissioning of the giant multiphase pump skids at the Ravva Terminal, the project team
stepped in to another project to augment production and clear the bottlenecks for fluids evacuation.
The objective of the Ravva Pipeline Project (RPP) was to evacuate additional fluids from RD wells,
replace corroded water injection pipelines, protection against future failure and meet the additional water
injection requirements. Oil and gas from offshore are routed to onshore terminal in S.Yanam through
shore crossing pipelines. Similarly, the injection water from the plant is transported offshore via outgoing
pipelines. Cairn laid a new pipeline in Ravva offshore field as a part of meeting the operational
requirements. The four segments of the pipeline were:
 14” diameter pipeline for transporting oil from RD platform to onshore plant (Approx 9023m)
 14” diameter pipeline for transporting injection water from onshore plant in RD (Approx 9171m)
 10” diameter pipeline for injection water line from RD platform to RC platform (Approx 5048m)
 8” diameter pipeline for transporting injection water from RE to RF platform (Approx 3158m)
 2 x 14” diameter risers at the RD platform, 10” riser at RD platform, 10” riser at RC platform, 8”
riser at RE platform, 8” riser at RF platform
There were several hurdles in the project, like extremely tight schedule, long lead time for procuring line
pipes, availability of contractors for offshore pipe laying due to the construction boom across the world,
the long process involved in tendering, scrutiny, and awarding of high value contracts. The statutory
clearances for marine spread mobilisation and the restricted weather window in Ravva - just 3.5 months
(mid Jan to end April) available in a whole year for carrying out subsea works, were the other hurdles.
The extent of job involved was project engineering, procurement of line pipes, coating, offshore and
onshore pipe laying, six riser installations, two shore pulls, subsea crossings and tie-in works at platforms
and onshore plant. A split contract approach was therefore adopted for speedy execution. The whole job
was split into approximately seven main contracts and more than 150 service/purchase orders. Each had
a link with the others and delay in one could affect the whole chain. The line pipes (12.5 m long x 2600
nos.) and weighing about 3600 MT were manufactured in Mexico, transported on a special liner to Vizag
for concrete coating, before delivering them to the pipe laying vessel in the Ravva field. The contract was
to lay more than 30 kms of pipelines between the platform and the terminal and also between the
platforms.
Platform topside modifications were also done at RC, RD, RE and RF to connect the new pipelines. On
the safety front the project underwent a lot of challenges, but all the safety tools were utilised such as risk
assessments, emergency response procedures, and safety bridging documents were utilised. Even with
the enormous amount of work being carried out at different locations, more than a million hours were
clocked in the project without any incident, which is a testimony to the safety best practices adopted by
the Ravva JV.
Despite all challenges, the team worked relentlessly and achieved the completion of the subsea pipeline
project by July 2008 and the onshore pipeline by March 2009. On 11th March, 2009, the 14” oil pipeline
from the RD platform to the Terminal was commissioned followed by the 14” water injection pipeline from
the terminal to the RD platform on 23th June, 2009 same year.