Europe

Global well integrity company, Coretrax, has collaborated with Lee Energy Systems (LES) to deliver a one-trip solution for a major North Sea operator for its P&A campaign.

The collaboration aims to maximise operational efficiencies for the creation of solutions for remedial annular cementing and plug cementing. Coretrax’s CX-2 bridge plug and CX-RTP (retrievable test packer) were deployed with LES’ GATOR Hydromechanical Perforator in order to provide a single-trip system which successfully placed environmental caps across eight wells.

The combined technologies will save operators a total of seven hours in downhole trips.

“As essential decommissioning projects continue to take place across the North Sea, the campaign is a clear example of how our suite of technology, with support from our skilled partners, can service all aspects of the plugging and abandonment process to deliver a full turn-key service,” said John Fraser, Chief Executive Officer, Coretrax.

“In the current economic climate, reducing rig time can save operators considerable expenditure while also reducing project carbon emissions, working closely with Lee Energy Systems and the operator on this project we were thrilled to be able to develop a solution which delivered such significant efficiencies.”

Owner of LES, Paul Lee, commented, “On behalf of the entire Lee Energy System’s team, I would like to thank John Fraser and all the Coretrax team for their commitment and professionalism in seeing these operations through to fruition.

“LES is delighted with its technical relationship with Coretrax where it focuses on its best-in-class solutions as well as ourselves and bring the combination of these teams together. Continuing to improve on these solutions and innovations will continue to be the focus of our two companies. Our goal is to provide industry-leading solutions to this challenging, costly and most important end of well life cycle decom operations.”  

Island Offshore, which owns an extensive fleet of offshore service vessels with a range of capacities, has indicated that their 2023 light well intervention work programme is filling up with several clients planning to increase the use of their service.

The company provided this information in a social media post where it suggested that utilisation is looking to improve further from 2022 levels. It added that the Island Wellserver vessel will be fully utilised in 2023 working on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and will, in December, be dry-docked at Ulstein Yard for class renewal.

The Island Constructor is currently trading outside the North Sea but will return to the region in February to undertake multi-client LWI work throughout 2023.

Continuing, the company explained that its riserless well intervention units are part of a cost-effective and flexible service alternative to rig-based interventions with a value proposition that has shown to be appealing to customers. The subsea well services include diagnostics, stimulation, monitoring, zonal isolation, and mechanical repairs.

Since 2005, Island Offshore has partnered with TechnipFMC and other alliance partners as first moves to complete more than 400 well interventions. The post concluded, “We are proud to be a small but significant player in the market.”

Celebrations rang through the night last week as the third annual OWI Awards 2022 brought industry giants together to highlight the very best in offshore well intervention.

This year the ceremony was hosted in Aberdeen on 25 November, 2022, and showcased a host of innovative technologies and solutions over the span of eight categories. The judging panel was made up of top operators from around the world ready to find the best of the best in well intervention.

Vaarst kicked off the night by taking home the Digital Transformation Leader trophy for its excellent work on the SubSLAM X2, a trailblazing digital solution which collects real-time intelligent data in order to deliver underwater live 3D point clouds with sub-millimetre precision.

Next up was Expro which was the big winner of the night, claiming victory in two award categories; Champion Integrated Well Service Company and Most Innovative Solution. The company’s integrated subsea intervention package and Octopoda system were recognised by the judging panel for their ingenuity and impact on the outer industry, thus earning the double win.

The award for the Best Example of Collaboration went to AKOFS Offshore in this hotly contested category, for its exemplary work with Equinor, offering the AKOFS Seafarer for integrated services utilising the company’s OneTeam model. The services are provided through four entities ­– AKOFS Offshore, IKM Subsea, Archer and Welltec – highlighting the integral prosperities of collaborative work within the industry.

Tendeka took to the top spot for the Best Project Outcome award, shining a light on the company’s remedial solution, Filtrex Conformable Sand Screen, which showed huge success restoring sand-free production across a three-well campaign in Indonesia. The remarkable performance earned Tendeka high recognition from the judging panel.

As sustainability is an incredibly hot topic within the industry at the minute, the award for Environmental Sustainability Innovation presented a very strong roster, but ultimately there could only be one winner, and Exceed pipped everyone else to the post. The company is on a mission to be the global leader of intergraded well management for energy transition, and was subsequently rewarded for its work on carbon neutral well operation.

SLB was awarded for its Plug and Abandonment Excellence thanks to its industry-first wireline service, Epilogue Isolation, wherein operators are no longer required to remove the inner pipe to evaluate well integrity, revolutionising conventional operations. The service reduces P&A rig days, minimising costs and reduces carbon footprint, all of which make the company a worthwhile winner in the eyes of the judges.

To end the ceremony, the final award was that of Significant Contribution to the Industry; an award which showcases the impressive portfolios accumulated by the finalists over the span of their respective company life cycles. The winner of the prestigious award was Weatherford for its rig-less framework approach to decommissioning pre-abandoned phase 3 wells.

Overall, the ceremony was a cause for celebration for not only the winners, but for all the finalists for all the hard work and dedication each operator has put into making the well intervention industry be the best it can be.

Energy services provider, Expro, has announced a US$50mn contract with North Sea operator, Apache Corporation.

The contract is for fully integrated well intervention and integrity services across all of Apache’s North Sea projects, including its Beryl and Forties assets, with a primary term of three years, and two one-year extension options.

Expro will provide services including slickline, e-line, cased hole, and pressure pumping across Apache’s assets, as well as several of the company’s own innovative technologies, including Octopoda, CoilHose and Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS) Slickline.

Expro’s Regional Vice President of Europe and sub-Sahara Africa, Colin Mackenzie, said, “We are delighted to receive this award, which demonstrates the continuation of our longstanding relationship with Apache and long-term investment in the UK sector of the North Sea.”

“Expro have worked with Apache for two decades. We are committed to providing safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible services. We look forward to adding further value to Apache with the introduction of our latest well intervention technologies.”

The project is due to commence in Q4 2022.

Harbour Energy, ConocoPhillips, Spirit Energy and Repsol Sinopec has formed a well decommissioning collaborative initiative in conjunction with the Net Zero Technology Centre (NTZC).

The initiative will enable new technologies to be trialled and tested in collaborative field trials – both offshore in the UK and onshore in several international locations – enabling faster, lower-cost trials and wider industry adoption. The initiative will have a total of up to UK£1.5mn annual funding to test innovative well decommissioning technologies.

The multi-operator led initiative will aim to fund up to five technologies per year and support a minimum of three field trials for each. By year four, the goal is to have a minimum of six technologies successfully qualified and adopted.

Rebecca Allinson, Head of Emissions Reduction, Net Zero Technology Centre, said, “This collaborative approach is a real game changer for well decommissioning technology development realised through the proactive attitude and willingness of our existing members to collaborate and share information.

“It is a unique multi-operator approach that will deliver the pace of technology development required to meet the industry commitment to reach a minimum of 35% cost reduction and 50% emissions reduction in well decommissioning by 2035.”

Vice President, Decommissioning and Energy Technology, Repsol Sinopec, Adam Sheikh, commented, “We look forward to working closely with the NZTC, other operators and technology developers to accelerate the pace of well decommissioning technology development and acceptance to the end that we, along with other operators within the UKCS, can realise the savings new technology can offer in a timely manner.”

FEBUS Optics, a French developer of Distributed Fibre Optic Sensing (DFOS) devices, and LYTT, a UK-based sensor fusion analytics platform provider, has announced they have signed a collaboration agreement in order to offer a powerful solution for well monitoring.

The DFOS market is growing quickly and is set to continue to expand over the next few years. This collaboration will provide continuous and distributed monitoring of assets which are more straightforward to implement, less expensive than traditional methods, and provide temperature and strain information.

The collaboration presents an opportunity to combine FEBUS’ hardware and LYTT’s software expertise to offer an innovative and powerful well monitoring solution which will visualise real-time insights, as well as enable operators to make quick and informed decisions.

FEBUS Optics CEO, Etienne Almoric, said, “With this agreement, we deliver to our customer a fully integrated solution for well monitoring by combining the best of FEBUS and LYTT. The objective is to make the life of our customers easier while extracting data that helps to enhance the performance and the efficiency of well management.”

Tim Morrish, Sales Director at LYTT, commented, “Energy companies are increasingly turning to innovative DFOS technologies that deliver well monitoring solutions addressing their unique operational needs. Our partnership with FEBUS Optics enables further flexibility in monitoring design architecture for the O&G market.”

Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), the leading representative body for the UK’s offshore energy industry, has published its latest Decommissioning Insight report.

More than 2,000 North Sea wells involved in oil and gas extraction are to be decommissioned at a cost of around UK£20bn over the next decade, says a new industry forecast.

The wells have played a crucial role in providing the UK with the energy to keep homes warm, run businesses and power vehicles.

Decommissioning is the process of withdrawing offshore energy infrastructure from use once it’s no longer needed or at the end of its lifecycle.

The report finds UK decommissioning is expanding fast and predicts a surge in activity over the next three to four years. It says the sector will continue growing as other emerging offshore energy technologies, like offshore wind farms, also require the service.

It is estimated around 2,100 North Sea wells will be decommissioned over the next decade – around 200 per year – at an average cost of £7.8mn per well.

In 2021 a 10th of UKCS oil and gas expenditure went into decommissioning. This proportion has risen to 14% in 2022 and is set to rise to 19% by 2031. Over the next 10 years, expenditure on decommissioning is predicted to total £19.7bn, with well decommissioning comprising nearly half of this spend.

Over 75% of total decommissioning spend will be within the central North Sea, (stretching from Yorkshire to the northern tip of Scotland), and the northern North Sea, (covering an area north of Scotland and east of Shetland and Orkney). The surge in work could particularly benefit industrial communities on adjacent coastlines, especially around Teesside, Humber, Aberdeen and Inverness. Decommissioning in the Irish Sea will generate more economic benefits in places like Merseyside.

However, the growth in other renewable energies, such as offshore wind, could cause bottlenecks in demand for decommissioning services, the report says.

It means the offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and oil and gas sectors will need to work together and be transparent about planned projects to make sure the opportunity is properly managed.

OEUK Decommissioning Manager, Ricky Thomson, said, “The UK’s decommissioning sector is snowballing and will continue growing for years to come.

“But this poses a challenge as well as an opportunity. The growth of renewables and demand for decommissioning services and expertise will create increasing pressure for resources.

“This is a great problem to have and it’s vital this opportunity is properly managed across the sector so that UK firms can capture the lion’s share of this £20bn opportunity.

“With the right support from government and action from the industry, the UK could make major gains from decommissioning, as well as retain thousands of jobs for this growing sector.”

ASCO, a provider of fully-integrated logistics and materials management services in the oil and gas, decommissioning and new energy sectors, has secured four new contracts for NORM decontamination and disposal services with major operators, worth more than UK£10mn.

NORM Solutions, part of ASCO's environmental service division, has won the multi-year contracts with leading operators to provide safe management and decontamination of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) on North Sea installations as they are decommissioned.

NORM Solutions will handle the receipt and decontamination of all types of offshore materials and equipment, safely cleaning the items to be returned offshore or recycled. They will also handle NORM-contaminated sludges and liquids, repackaging these for safe onward transport and disposal.

The contracts will be further supported by deploying ASCO's radiation protection supervisors, who manage the offshore processes required to identify and safely store and offload any contaminated material.

Chris Lloyd, Head of Environmental and Decommissioning at ASCO, said, "Since ASCO acquired full ownership of NORM Solutions in 2019, the business has gone from strength to strength. The quality of our facilities and the professionalism of our team at NORM Solutions has played a major part in these contract successes and we greatly appreciate our customers faith in the services we deliver.”

Lloyd continued that with the UK acting as a leader in the decommissioning market worldwide, he anticipates continued growth at NORM Solutions to service increasing demand.