ISO 13624-1:2009

Overview

ISO 13624-1:2009 - "Petroleum and natural gas industries - Drilling and production equipment - Part 1: Design and operation of marine drilling riser equipment" - defines recommended practices for the design, selection, operation and maintenance of marine drilling riser systems used in floating drilling operations. The standard treats the riser as a system that includes the tensioner system and all equipment between the upper flex/ball joint top connection and the bottom of the wellhead conductor outer casing. It excludes the diverter and is applicable specifically to operations with a subsea BOP stack on the seafloor. ISO 13624-1 relies on basic engineering principles and industry experience and includes informative annexes with worksheets, fatigue guidance, sample calculations and run procedures.

Key Topics

• Component function and selection: guidance on selecting riser joints, telescopic/slip joints, flex/ball joints, LMRP, flexible choke/kill and auxiliary lines, buoyancy and specialty equipment.
• Tensioner systems: design and operational considerations for riser tensioning and associated accumulators.
• Riser response analysis: modelling and analysis approaches (design loads, coupled/decoupled methodologies, drift-off/drive-off, recoil, weak-point and hang-off analyses).
• Operations: riser running and retrieval procedures, installed-riser operations, rise operations manuals, emergency disconnect and drive-/drift-off response.
• Integrity and inspection: inspection objectives, maintenance after retrieval, in-service inspection, transportation/handling/storage, and operational record keeping.
• Special situations: deepwater drilling, guidelineless systems, cold-weather operations, riser collapse scenarios and H2S considerations.
• Normative and informative references: consistency requirements with ISO 13625 (load classifications), and referenced documents such as BS 7910. Annexes provide practical worksheets and worked examples.

Applications

ISO 13624-1 is used by:

• Design engineers for riser system design and component selection
• Operator and drilling contractors to develop riser running procedures, operations manuals and emergency disconnect plans
• Maintenance and inspection teams to establish inspection regimes and acceptance criteria
• Manufacturers and suppliers to ensure components meet system-level requirements
• Regulatory or project teams assessing riser integrity, deepwater or guidelineless drilling readiness

Typical applications include floating drilling programs (including deepwater), development of riser analysis reports, fatigue and collapse assessments, and production of riser operations and inspection documentation.

Related Standards

• ISO 13625 - Marine drilling riser couplings (load-class consistency)
• ISO 13624-2 - Deepwater drilling riser methodologies and integrity (technical report)
• Historical guidance referenced: API RP 16Q and related technical reports (contextual background for deepwater practices)

Keywords: ISO 13624-1:2009, marine drilling riser, floating drilling operations, subsea BOP, riser integrity, riser analysis, deepwater drilling, riser components, riser tensioner.