aTe 4925

Submarine Pipeline Trenching by Multipass Ploughs

by R.J. Brown and A.C. Palmer, R.J. Brown & Assocs.

Copyright 1985 Offshore Technology Conference

This paper was presented at the 17th Annual OTC in Houston, Texas, May 6-9,1985. The material is subject to correction by the author. Permission to
copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 woras.

ABSTRACT sectors has led to a moderation of

requirements. Authorities are now sometimes
A major development program for large ready to accept that pipelines need not be
ploughs to trench submarine pipelines began trenched, particularly if they are large or
in 1975, and has led to the construction of if it can be demonstrated1t~at they will
13 ploughs, which have been used in many bury themselves naturally ,
parts of the world. Deep trenches are best
cut in a sequence of separate passes. The Until about five years ago, jetting was the
paper describes the development of the first technique almost always used to trench
multi-pass plough, used to trench the submarine pipelines. Since jetting
Gullfaks pipeline in 1984, and the techniques were first developed in the
application of the concept to Arctic 1950s, they have been substantially
pipelines, which may require trenches more modified, but their efficiency is much
than 4 m deep. affected by geotechnical 'conditions on the
sea bed. In medium clay, for instance,
INTRODUCTION jetting cuts a neat rectangular trench, but
in loose sand it leaves a wide and shallow
Many submarine pipelines have to be trench, with side slopes less than 10 0 ,
trenched. A trench protects the pipe against which does little to protect the pipeline.
damage from fishing gear, much reduces In the wrong conditions, jetting is slow an
hydrodynamic forces from waves and currents, expensive. In one notorious instance in the
gives a degree of protection from small Netherlands sector, 13 passes over the same
anchors and from construction vessels' spot were required before the pipeline was
mooring lines, and may be desirable for lowered to the required depth.
security, aesthetic or environmental
reasons. The relative importance of these A creative dissatisfaction with the high
factors naturally varies from project to cost and limited efficiency of jetting led
project. If the trench is backfilled, to a a search for better trenching methods.
protection against fishing gear and waves is There have been two principal lines of
complete, security against other kinds of development, ploughs and mechanical cutting
damage is increased, and heat transfer systems. Each is appropriate in the right
between the pipe and the sea is reduced. conditions. At first, mechanical cutting
systems were plagued by mechanical and
In some areas, regulatory authorities insist electrical faults, and by sensitivity to
on trenching, at least for small-diameter bottom soils and topography. These problem
pipelines. In the early years of North Sea have now been largely overcome, and the
development, for instance, authorities asked Kvaerner-Myren and Heerema systems have bee
for pipelines to be lowered below the used in a number of North Sea projects,
natural sea bed, sometimes to a depth of 2 while in the English Channel good results
or 3 m. It was widely a,rgued that these have been achieved with cutting systems
requirements were excessive, and the designed to trench the cross-channel power
generally excellent ex~erience of more than cables.
15 years operation of an extensive and
growing network of North Sea pipelines, in At the same time, there has been a major
the British, Norwegian, Dutch and Danish development of pipeline trenching ploughs.
Only nine years ago, the idea of ploughing
References and illustrations at 'end of pipeline trenches met a hostile and often
paper. derisive response. Ploughing is now an
283

- - - - - - -- -- -
- - -
 2 SUBMARINE PIPELINE TRENCHING BY MULTI-PASS PLOWS
accepted and widely used technique, and in
many conditions is the method of choice.
Figure I is a plot of the length of
submarine pipeline ploughed each year since
1977, and the number of distinct projects
each year, and shows the growth in the
acceptance of the plough technique since
1980.
PLOUGHS
The plough is an ancient device. In
agriculture, its function is not generally
to make a trench, but to turn over and break
up the upper layer of soil, and to bury
vegetation. Large trenching ploughs are used
in forestry. Ploughs were used to trench
pipelines in the UK and the Middle East in
the 19605. With hindsight, it appears that
the difficulty of designing a good plough
had been underestimated. A plough designed
incorrectly either d~gs too far and becomes
anchored, or fails to penetrate and scrapes
along the surface without making a proper
trench. Moreover, it is sensitive to soil
strength, and cuts at different depths in
different soils. All these troubles
occurred, and development was discontinued.
The development described here was
stimulated by observations during a bottom
tow test in the Norwegian Trench in 1975,
which showed that the pull head at the
leading end of the pipeline itself cut a
shallow trench in the sea bed, and suggested
that if a plough were added a pipeline could
be trenched and towed into position in the
same operation. The first pipeline trenched
by this method ~a~ a loading line on the
Statfjord field ' As a first application
of ploughing, the project was an ambitious
one. The trench had to be cut in hard
heavily-overconsolidated clay, with a shear
strength of 150 kN/m 2 , and the plough was to
be pulled by a tug with a bollard pull of
1.8 MN (180 tonnes). Accurate depth control
was essential, since otherwise the specified
trench depth would not be achieved
everyWhere, and the plough might require
more force than the tug could apply. That
prompted the choice of the long-beam
configuration, shown in Figure 2, which has
been ~dopted in all subsequent pipeline
ploughs. Its outstanding advantage is
precise and consistent depth control. Skids
or wheels hold the front end of the beam at
a fixed height above the sea bed. The rear
end of-the beam carries a share, which cuts
the soil and lifts it upwards and sideways.
Mouldboards push the spoil outwards, so that
it does not fall back into the trench. Under
the share, and fixed to it, there is a rigid
heel. In normal operation, the plough runs
so that the heel is horizontal, and the
plough is in balance under the combined
action of the soil force on the front of the
share, the reaction under the heel, the pull
force at the front end of the beam, and its
own weight (usually small by comparison with
the other three forces). If the plough
284
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OTC4925
attitude alters, so that it cuts less
deeply, the heel loses contact with the
trench bottom, the heel reaction falls to
zero, and the share reaction pushes the
share downward so that it cuts more deeply.
If, on the other hand, the plough cuts too
deeply, the heel itself has to cut the soil
and the heel reaction increases and lifts
the share to reduce the cutting depth.
In consequence of the long-beam
configuration, the plough cuts at a uniform
depth, and the trench depth does not change
if the soil strength changes (unless it
becomes so weak that it cannot support the
heel or the skids). If the heel is indlined
transversely, so that it is in contact with
the sides of the trench as well as the
bottom, the same principle gives directiona
stability.
The first trenching plough cut a 1.2 m deep
trench 2200 m long at Statfjord in 1977. A
second plough was designed to trench the
s
shore crossing of the Drake F 7g flowline
system in the Canadian Arctic ' It had to
work in a completely different bottom soil,
a soft marine clay with a shear strength of
3 kN/m 2
These two ploughs were applied in a
pre-trenching mode, to cut a trench into
which a pipeline would afterwards be pulled
Their success prompted investigation of the
wider pqssibilities of post-trenching, wherE
the pipeline is laid first, by a laybarge,
reel or a tow, and then the trench is cut
beneath the pipe. Development of
post-trenching ploughs began in 1977. One
concept was for the plough to excavate a
trench parallel to the pipeline, and for th
pipe to flex sideways into the trench,
rather as it does with the Kvaerner-Myren
trenching machine. The second concept was
for a symmetrical plough, which would cut
directly beneath the pipe, and that concept
has been preferred for all ploughs built to
date, for several reasons, principally its
ability to meet a range of soil types.
Model tests on post-trenching were carried
out for Shell Expro in 1977, and for Smit
International in 1977-8, and investigated
several aspects of the design, including
interaction between the plough and the pipe
plough forces in different soils, and
steering. They confirmed that post-trenchin
would be safe and economical, and a full-
scale plough was designed in 1978. Further
model tests followed in 1979.
Several different plough configurations hav
been examined. The principal design problem
is to configure the shares so that they can
be placed over the pipeline without risk of
damage, so that they can close beneath the
pipe to excavate a trench under it, and so
that the plough can be recovered easily at
the end of the operation. A separate paper 7
discusses the alternatives. Ploughs designe
by RJBA adopt a "butterfly" configuration:
twin half-shares are hinged to the rear end
- - - -- - ,
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OTC4925 R.J. BROWN AND A.C. PALMER
of the beam, are placed over the pipe in an
open position, and rotate and close under
the pipe as the plough is pulled forward.
The first application of a post-trenching
plough was in the Bass Strait in 1979 to
trench the 24-inch diameter8s~a~Eer
pipeline for Esso Australia " The
success of that operation helped convince
operators of the practicability and economy
of ploughing, and led to wider interest.
Most of the route of the Snapper line was in
sand, but the plough had also encountered
limestone, and had trenched through it. A
substantial length of the route of the North
Rankin 40-inch gas pipeline, north-west of
Australia, crosses limestone and sandstone
sea bed, and has to be trenched for
protection against high currents, and
against anchors in shallow water. The
mechanics of ploughing rock are o(course
quite different to those of ploughing soil.
Excavation in rock proceeds by a succession
of fracture events, in which the rock breaks
into large fragments which are then lifted
out of the trench by the share. This was
studied in a major research program at
Western Australia Institute of Technology,
designed to investigate fracture mechanisms,
plough forces, and interactions when soil
and rock are present together. This effort
culminated in the design of the largest
plough ever built (Fi~ijre 3), which trenched
the North Rankin line in November and
December 1982.Woodside Petroleum have stated
that the application of the plough to this
project saved A$40 million.
Table I is a list of pipeline trenching
ploughs. Table 2 is a list of submarine
pipelines which have been trenched by
ploughs, and confirms the extent to which
the technique has become accepted. The total
volume of trench excavated by trench~ng
ploughs is approximately 2,000,000 m
MULTI-PASS PLOUGHS
The dimensions of a plough are primarily
determined by the depth and cross-section of
the trench it has to cut. The structural
weight is determined both by the size of the
plough and the draft, the pull force
required to advance the plough through the
bottom soil. The calculation of draft for a
particular trench design is a complex task,
and a designer applies a combination of
dimensional analysis, theoretical soil
mechanics, results of model tests, and -
most importantly - records from field
observations of ploughs in actual projects
and trials. Designers and operators of
ploughs naturally prefer to keep their
methods and databases proprietary. It can
however be said that in almost all types of
soil a trench 2 m deep, cut in a single
pass, will require a ploughing force between
1 MN and 5 MN (100 and 500 tonnes) and that
the corresponding plough will weigh at least
1.5 MN (150 tonnes).
285
--- - -
3
The draft increases rapidly with the depth
of trench. In clay, for geometrically
similar trenches, the draft increases
rougjhly as the quare of the trench depth,
while for trenches of constant width the
draft increases more than linearly with the
depth. In sand, the draft increases still
more rapidly with trench depth.
It follows that any plough that cuts a deep
trench in a single pass will necessarily be
both large and heavy, and that it will
require a large pull force. Once the pull
force exceeds 5 MN (500 tonnes), the
difficulties multiply. Not only does the
structural weight of the plough begin to
become excessive, but friction generated by
the weight itself begins to make a
significant contribution to the draft.
Because the plough is so heavy, it becomes
difficult to handle. A large barge is
required to transport it, and a large crane
to lower it safely onto the pipeline. There
has to be a strong link between the pough
and whatever is pulling it : even allowing
rather small factor of safety of 2 on
minimum breaking load, a wire rope some 125
rom (5 inches) in diameter is needed to pull
5 MN. Finally, the pulling system must be
anchored. If, the plough is pulled by an
anchored barge, the problems of relocating
anchors, finding good holding ground, and
balancing and controlling mooring line
tensions become relatively serious if the
pull force exceeds 5 MN, whereas a
reqyuirement to anchor against 1 or 2 MN is
commonplace and easily satisfied, in
deep-water laybarge pipe laying for instance
All these factors indicate that a deep
trench should not be cut in a single pass,
but that it will be better to adopt a
multi-pass technique, in which the required
depth is reached in two or more cuts.
This concept appeared at an early stage ~n
plough development, and model experiments
were carried out in 1977. In the first pass
the trench was cut to a trapezoidal
cross-section, with a level bottom and side
at 30 0 to the horizontal. The shares were
then changed, and in the second pass a
deeper triangle was cut from the bottom of
the first-pass trench.
It was ultimately decided not to trench th
pipeline for which the 1977 tests were
conducted, and the development was not
pursued at the time. Subsequent ploughs wer
built for single-pass operation, since the
trenches were relatively shallow and the
bottom materials not unusually hard. In
1983, however, a study was made of the
possibility of using a plough to trench a
pipeline between the Gullfaks and Statfjord
fields in the North Sea. Geotechnical
investigation had showed the bottom to be
composed of very hard clay, with an
undr2ined shear strength of more than 400
kN/m in some places, covered with a thin
layer of sand, varying from 0.5 m to a few
--- -- - -- - '
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cm. A design study showed that rather than
construct a plough which would achieve the
design trench depth in a single pass along
the entire route, it would be more
economical to provide for multi-pass
operation, as an option so that two passes
could be used in particularly hard areas.
A multi-pass plough has several design
problems not present in a single-pass
plough. The long-beam principle ensures that
the plough cuts a trench whose bottom is at
a fixed distance below the level of the
leading end of the beam, whose height is in
turn controlled by the skids or wheels which
run on the natural sea bed. In other words,
the height of the skids is the reference
level for the trench depth. The first pass
leaves the spoil piled along the sides of
the trench. A design choice has to be made,
of the way to support the leading end of the
beam during the second pass. The choices are
*
1. to run the skids within the trench,
2. to run the skids outside the spoil left
by the first pass,
3. to run the skids on the spoil, or
4. to move the spoil from the first pass
further away before the skids reach it in
the second pass.
Option 3 is impracticable because the spoil
is generally uneve-n and soft. Option 1 has
the advantage that the longitudinal
of the trench is smoother than the original
profile of the bottom - a consequence of the
long-beam principle which can be used
advantageously in span correction - but the
disadvantage that the skids are too close-
together and have to be relatively small,
since they must run in the trench and at the
same time leave room for the pipeline. The
plough may then tend to roll, if one
half-share is moving hrough harder material
than the other, or if it strikes an
obstruction. Option 2 makes the plough very
wide.
Model tests of a multi-pass plough were
carried out in a clay pit near Temse in
Belgium, in January 1984. Initially, the
plough was made according to option 2, but
it wasfound that stray fragments of clay
spoil from the first pass would collect in
front of the skids and block the cross-beam.
Angled blades were then added to the front
of the plough, and moved the spoil outwards,
so that a clear path was left for the skids.
After the model tests, the design of the
prototype multi-pass ploough was finalised,
using the lessons learned, and the plough
was built in Holland and tested near Tiel in
June 1984. Figures 4 and 5 show the plough
during the tests. The 22 km pipeline was
successfully trenched in July and August.
Boulders produced some difficulties, and led
to operation of a load-release system
designed to protect the plough and its
pulling system against high loads. In one
location, a large boulder brought the plou~
to a standstill. The plough was recovered,
moved across the boulder, and replaced and
restarted 20 m further along the pipeline.
The plough had been tested in the
second-pass mode, and performed well. In t]
actual operation on the Gullfaks pipeline,
however, the specified trench depth was
reached in one pass, and a second pass was
not necessary.
The trials confirm the practicability of
multi-pass ploughing. They open the way to
plough that can cut trenches to any depth,
and will at the same time keep the draft al
weight to an acceptable level.
AN ARCTIC MULTI-PASS PLOUGH
Multi-pass ploughs will of course only be
developed if there is a need for them. In
most regions where hydrocarbons are product
offshore, pipeline trenching requirements
have been reduced over the years, as
satisfactory experience and continued
research have brought operators and
regulatory authorities to the opinion that
deep trenching is unnecessary.
There is a different situation in the
Arctic, where pipelines will need to be
trenched to protect them against ice scour
profile (and possibly against strudel scour and ict
grounding) . The methods of calculating the
expected maximum scour depth are
controversial, and the required trench
depths in different areas even more so.
There is no intention to engage in that
controversy here. However, it is generally
thought that a cover of 3 or 4 m will be
required in some areas of the Beaufort Sea
and that where iceberg scour is significant.
as in Davis Strait, there may have to be 6
or 7 m cover.
Multi-pass ploughing is an attractive and
rapid technique for constructing trenches 7
this depth, either in a pre-laying or in a
post-laying mode. Design studies indicate
that a 4 m trench will require 2 to 4
passes, and a 6 m trench 4 to 8 passes. Tht
decisive factor is the geotechnics of the
sea bedm, and site investigation will have
to be careful and detailed, though this is
of course equally true for any trenching
technique. The speed of ploughing depends <
the power of the pulling system, and the
rate at which anchors can be relocated.
Maximum speeds of 1000 m/hour have been
achieved, and average speeds can reach 200
m/hour (4.8 km/day) .Most Arctic pipelines
will not need to have deep trenches over
long distances, because the most severe ic(
scour occurs over a narrow range of water
depths, typically 15 to 30 m, and most oil
and gas finds to. date are not far from
shore. Consider a hypothetical 30 km
9QC
OTC 4925 R.J. BROWN AND A.C. PALMER
pipeline divided into three trenchinq
as- follows
zone range of design
length water depths trench
depth
(km) (m) (m)
5 0-1o 2.5
15 10 - 30 4.5
10 30 - 50 1 1
and assume the speed of the plough, and khe
times for deployment and recovery, to be
speed ploughing 200
speed moving 1000
deployment 10
recovery 5 hours
turning in one spot 15
The total time depends on the sequence of
trenching. The shortest schedule is 445
hours (19 days); plus mechanical and weathe~
downtime. Even making a generous allowance
for downtime, this is well within the
open-water season in the Beaufort Sea, in
any but exceptionally bad ice years, and so
it would be safe to plan for mobilization
and completion of trenching in a single
season.
Any mechanical device that can continuously
excavate a trench 4 m deep, on land or at
sear must be large. A plough is no
exception. Preliminary design estimates are
that the plough would be 45 m long, 25
broad, and 10 m high, and that it would
weigh some 3 MN (300 tonnes). This is
consistent with the size of major offshore
equipment, and small by comparison with a
cutter-suction dredger or a-mechanical
cutting system able to cut the same trench.
There has to be a handling and pulling
system, in addition to the plough itself,
and adoption of the multi-pass principle
keeps down the size of that system. In the
open-water season, it can be transported by
a conventional cargo barge, and handled by z
pull barge which is equipped with a suitabl~
crane. The pull barge is held in position by
mooring lines to anchors, which are
progressively relocated byanchor-handling
tugs . The barge pulls the plough through
cables to linear winches. The plough also
carries the monitoring and control system,
used to follow the operation of the plough
and to control the cutting depth.
An option is to trench in the winter, using
the sea ice as astable working platform.
This was the option used in the Drake F-76
project at Melville Island in 1977, the
first and so far only a~p~ication of an
Arctic trenching plough . The plough was
lowered through a hole sawed in the sea ice,
which was 2 m thick. A cable was lowered
through a straight slot through the ice
along the pipeline alignment, and a winch or
the ice 1300 m from shore pulled the plough,
j
5
to excavate a trench 1.5 m deep and 300 m
zones, long in 30 minutes. However, that project
was located in a sheltered bay, in which th
ice was quite smooth, with surface relief.
number of ridges and hummocks rarely more than 0.5 m
passes high, and no pressure ridges or large masse
of multi-year ice. It was relatively easy t
cut the slot and the hole, and there was
enough depth for the plough to move freely
2 under the ice.
4
In the Beaufort Sear ice conditions would
probably be more difficult, with uneven ice
pressure ridges, and areas of shallow water
It would then be a harder task to cut a S1O
for the pull cable, though an alternative i
m/hour to select the ice-hole (seal-hole)
mlhour technique proposed for ice-based pipeline
hours construction, in which a cable is in ~$;;led
under the ice between separate holes
hours problem with all ice-based construction is
that the plough has to be carried across th
ice to the starting position, and the ice
has to be strong enough to support the
plough and its lifting system, and smooth
enough for the system to move.
Ice-based construction is potentially
attractive, if only because the season of
strong and stable ice cover is longer and
more reliable than the open-water season. A
choice between ice-based and water-based
construction will depend primarily on the
ice climate.
BACKFILLING
m When pipeline engineers speak of burial,
they generally mean trenching . Trenching
techniques usually leave the pipeline in an
open trench. Ploughing leaves the spoil
neatly piled along the trench sides, rather
than dispersed into the water. As well as
eliminating water pollution, this has the
advantage that once trenching is complete- a
backfilling device can move along the
trench, to push the spoil back to cover the
pipeline. In the Arcticr this will protect
the line against ice scour from masses
moving along the trench, and from ice
pile-ups and strudel scours over the line.
Model tests have demonstrated that a
backfilled can be constructed on the
long-beam principle, and that it
successfully covers a pipeline.
CONCLUSION
In the last five years, ploughing has prove
itself as a reliable and economical
technique for trenching pipelines. A
full-scale multi-pass plough has been built
and tested. The technology is ready for the
design and construction of large ploughs to
cut deep trenches for Arctic offshore
pipelines.
6 SUBMARINE PIPELINE TRENCHING BY MULTI-PASS PLOWS OTC4925

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (11) Kaustinen, O.M., Brown, R.J. and

Some of the material presented in this paper
formed part of a paper at the 1985 Oil and
Gas Pipeline Technology Seminar in
Amsterdam.
The authors wish to pay tribute to the
memory of Klaas de Koning, who died in 1984
after a road accident. His energy and
enthusiasm played a major part in the
development of trenching ploughs.
Palmer, A.C. Submarine pipeline
crossing of MClure Strait,
Proceedings, Seventh International
Conference on Port and Ocean
Engineering under Arctic Conditions
[;;;~;nki 1983, VTT Espoo, ~, 289-299
.

REFERENCES

(1) Hulsbergen, C.H. Stirnulat~d

self-burial of submarme pzpelines ,
Proceedings, Sixteenth Annual Offshore
Technology Conference, Houston, ~,
171-178 (1984).

(2) Van Dongen, F.A. Het ingraven van

onderzeese leidingen , Civiele en
;fi~mdige techniek, (7), 22-26
.

(3) Brown, R.J. and Abel, W. Offloading

line made up onshore, towed to site,
Oil and Gas Journal, 76,(47) 67-72
(1978) .

(4) Brownr R.J. Examining new pipeline

burial methods, Offshore (1978).

(5) Palmer, A.C., Baudais, D.J., and

Masterson, D.M. Design and
installation of a submarine flowline in
the Canadian Arctic Islands ,
Proceedingsr Eleventh Annual Offshore
Technology Conference, Houston, ~,
765-772 (1979).

(6) Palmer, A.C., Kenny, J.P., Perera, M.R.

and Reecer A.R. lDesign and operation
of an underwater pipeline trenching
plough, Geotechnique, ~, 305-322
(1979) .

(7) Brown, R.J. and Palmer, A.C. Progress

in pipeline trenching by ploughing
European Seminar on Offshore Oil and
Gas Pipeline Technology, Amsterdam
(1985) .

(8) Brown, R.J. Post-trenching plow

cuts ditch under offshore line Oil and
Gas Journal, 78, (23) 47-51 (1980).

(9) Brown, R.J.ecent advances in pipeline

stabilization and automated connection
European Seminar on Oil and Gas
Pipeline Technology (1981).

(10) Brown, R.J. Here are the latest

advances in pipeline trenching by
plowing, Oil and Gas Journal, Q, (18)
106-111 (1983).

788
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 .. . ,. . . . . . . -.. -,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -. . . . . . . .

TABLE 1 PIPELINE PLOLXHS

Design
Maximum Line Trench
Reference Year of Current trenching bollard Line Operator Location diameter Length depth Year Plough
number construction Designer owner depth pull (inch) (km) (m) (ref table
(m) (tonnes) 1)

1 1977 RJBA Mobil 1.2 300

StatfjorclA Mobil Norwegian 36 2.2 1.2 1977 1
2 1977 RJBA Panarctic 1.5 50 sector

3 1980 RJBA/ Land & Marine 1.2 200 Drake F-76 Panarc tic Canada 24 0.3 1.5 1978 2
L&14
Snapper Esso Australia 24 37 0.7 1980 5
4 1978 RJBA Esso Australia 0.8 100
West Sole BP UK sector 20 80 1 1981 3
5 1980 RJBA Esso Australia 1.2 220
Central Shell Sarawak 36 70 1.8 1982 7
6 1979 SMD UDI 0.6 ~Ah Luconia

7 1982 RJBA McDermott 1.8 200 lfagnus BP UK sector 6 35 0.5 1982 6

8 1982 RJBA ETPM 2 400 North Renkin tloodside Australia 40 120 2 1982 8

9 1982 RJBA Esso Japan 1.85 300 Whyslla Santos Australia 12 2.4 0.5 1982 4

10 1984 RJBA Stacoil 1.2 200 Ivaki Esso Japan 12 40 1.85 1983 9

11 1984 SMU Brown & Root 1 200 Northern Leg Britoil UK sector 6 11 0.6 1982 6

12 1984 RJBA ETPM 1.5 HA* Highlander Texaco UK sector 14 60 NA 1984 6

13 1984 L&M Land & Marine NA* HA* Statfjord C Mobil Norwegian 12 11 1 1984 11
sector

Gullfaks Statoil Norwegian 14 22 1.2 1984 10

This list does not include about 25 model and test ploughs. sector

* Proprietary or not available Heimdal-Brae Elf Norwegian 8 116 0.9 1985 12

sector

Ula-Cod BP Norwegian 10 26 NA 1985 13

sector
km

200
beam

100

7778
El
8081
u 82838485 year t
heel

Fig. lDevelopment of pipeline trenching by ploughs: lengths of bars in- Fig. 2Long-beam plough.
dicate distance ploughed and numbers above bars indicate
projects.

Fig. 3Post-trenching plough for North Ranldn pipeline,

 , Fig. 4Post-trenching plough for Gullfaks pipeline.

/_&i.

Fig. 5Post-trenching plough for Gullfaks pipeline.