Polyster Mooring for the Mad Dog Spar - Design Issues and Othe Considerations

The Mad Dog Project will use a polyester mooring system on the drilling and production truss spar. This will be the first use of a permanent polyester mooring system on a Floating Production System (FPS) outside of Brazil and the first time polyester has been used on a spar. As such, there were many challenges, which include regulatory approval; designing a mooring system which is dominated by current loadings; largest polyester rope break load ever required; rope design qualification and testing; quality control and assurance; and inspection, maintenance, repair and retirement (IMRR) of such a mooring system. This paper will focus on the design issues, rope design, manufacturing, qualification and testing, and the IMRR plan that was developed to provide the assurance that the polyester mooring system could be safely operated over the 20-year field life.