At times, infield and export subsea pipeline routes are manually designed and sited in the early stagesrnof a project using only existing, publicly available, low-resolution bathymetric data with minimalrnconsideration for the geological complexity that may affect the proposed infrastructure. Geohazards acrossrnthe development area may not be identified or could be misinterpreted based on the resolution of thernavailable data. Selecting a pipeline route before a detailed geohazard assessment is completed may resultrnin revisions to the route, taking up valuable time and resources, and leading to significant costs.rnThis paper describes the workflow of an example pipeline route optimization performed on multiplerndatasets with varying resolutions across the same study area. Each dataset was individually analyzed andrnassessed for regional geohazards, then least-cost pipeline routing methods were used for pipeline routernselection. We show how least-cost route optimization is affected by data resolution, geohazard identification,rnand geocost weighted inputs and emphasize the importance of incorporating the highest resolution datarnavailable when conducting pipeline route optimization.
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