This month Hydratight returned once again with sister firm Cortland Company to the Subsea Tieback Forum and Exhibition in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Hydratight created a custom pipeline which formed the centrepiece of its exhibit and demonstrated delegates its Hot Bolting services.

With more than 2,500 platforms in the Gulf of Mexico approaching or already exceeding their design life, the Hot Bolting Services were of particular interest to those offshore operators with ageing assets.

While existing offshore assets are compelled to remain online, their lifespan must be prolonged safely and efficiently. According to Hydratight, safe and secure solution is its new Hot Bolt Clamp design. The clamp doesn’t affect the gasket during the hot bolting operation and therefore reduces significantly the possibility of leakage or a blowout during the procedure.

In order to demonstrate the principle of design live at Subsea Tieback, Hydratight set up a Flange Assembly Demonstration Unit (FADU), which measures the bolt load and gasket stress in real time during the hot bolting demonstration. With this demonstration the offshore technical authorities could see and understand how the flange behaves while using the clamp.

Vivek Mittal, Global Product Manager, Hydratight, said: “Instead of displaying our products in isolation, we decided to present our products a little different on the exhibition stand. The pipeline on display allowed visitors to see exactly how our products work together to create a complete joint integrity solution.”