Subsea pipelines (or flow lines) and subsea structures usually need to be thermally
insulated to avoid, for instance, hydrate formation.
Such coatings are commercially available and fall into the following general families:
- Polypropylene
- Polyurethane
- Epoxy and phenolic
- Rubber
At the moment, no national or international standard addresses these types of coatings.
Only company specifications are dealing with that issue. These coatings are more and
more being used for the offshore deep sea developments, and we strongly believe there is a need now for international standardization on the subject to ensure the whole industry with a minimum level of quality, since we see cases of premature failures of such coating systems.