Advances in deepwater structure installation technologies

New offshore projects are targeting water depths of over 3000 m far from the land, and the preferred option for field development is deepwater structures, which include subsea equipment and pipeline systems. Many publications are focused on the deepwater structure installation technology in order to understand the behaviour of structures during installation and to control the installation process safely. In this paper, the installation solutions backed by engineering tools and numerical simulation methods are presented and discussed for subsea equipment and pipelines, respectively. The corresponding latest advances in the installation technologies are presented, together with their main characteristics and critical challenges. The authors also discuss general trends in future development that may result in further advances.