North America

At the recently concluded Offshore Well Intervention Gulf of Mexico conference, representatives from Caltex Oil Tools provided a detailed presentation of a recently concluded damaged wellhead repair project where the company utilised new technology and methodologies to successfully bring a well back online.

Since bursting onto the subsea scene in 2018, Caltex has become an established solutions-focused business which provides rentals, services and bespoke engineering capabilities for subsea operations. In the case of the latter, the company and its affiliates offer a range of services including equipment rental to support vessel and rig-based pre-commissioning, controls, completions, intervention and decommissioning activities; consultancy services with experts specialising in business development, sales, remote technologies, subsea controls, diver and diverless interventions, vessel based IMR operations, and emergency response repairs; as well as engineered solutions where it specialises in unplanned emergency response requests to developing transformative technical solutions.

The project that was presented at OWI GOM began when a major operator contacted Caltex over an offline well which had visible damage to the VX profile, FX profile and isolation sealing surface. Knowing Caltex’s extensive capabilities, the operator sought the company’s immediate help to intervene and bring the well back online. In turn, Caltex responded by developing a custom solution for machining the inner wellhead profile to remove the damaged surfaces.

It was in November 2021 when Caltex first began work on the project, with an initial concept to remove protruding materials and polish damages. According to Carter Kacal, Project Manager at Caltex, it was shortly after this, in January, when the project began to grow and the scope developed from what was originally perceived. After analysis of damage, their plans involved to machine the new ID .25’’ beyond the last damage, increase the ID of the wellhead by 0.125’’ and machine a 30° lead-in bevel at top/bottom of the increased ID.

This involved the development of a tool with the goal to machine a new ID of the damaged wellhead to tight specifications which also incorporated an automated system featuring closed loop controls and independent electronic actuator controls. From January onwards, Caltex swiftly developed Software (in just 15 days) and tested the tool to perform the required work before travelling to the manufacturer of the wellhead to perform an SIT at the beginning of March.

The technology utilised in the solution delivered by Caltex, according to Kacal, included a real mix of field-proven to new technology, resulting in a bespoke solution. It included three electronic actuators, an RPM sensor, subsea control units, a localised subsea power bank and an optical communication link connected through the ROV and controlled from the surface.

Kacal commented, “The results of the SIT were extremely positive, better than we could have expected, and well within the specifications we needed to be which is shown in the table.”

“We needed to be within 0.005'' concentricity and we achieved 0.002'' which was great. And then the surface finish that was well below what it needed to be as well. The goal (measured in Ra) was to be 111 Ra or lower. And so you can see there the average of the three numbers [on the table] is around 46. The only thing missing there is the results on the bevel cut. So we needed to cut a bevel as well as machine new diameter. We needed to be 30°, we were at 26°. This was a little steeper than we needed to be, but still successful nonetheless. From that everyone was happy to go offshore and we felt comfortable as well.”

Indeed, little time was wasted in doing so as, by the middle of March, the tool was offshore and ready to perform. Kacal continued, “We had a timely mobilisation with no downtime for the tool. We performed the operation in five days (from mobilisation to demobilisation) which included less than 24 hours operation of the tool itself. Then, once we pulled it off and actually tested the wellhead, everything was successful and eventually the well was able to be brought back online.”

For a job that began in November and had to contend with workscope changes along the way, it was a remarkably quick turnaround for the company which was ultimately successful. Kacal remarked that, alongside the timeliness of the operation, what worked very well was the automated system with closed loop controls alongside the performance of the tungsten carbide tool tip. He added that given slightly more time they could have spent more time developing and optimising the tool, however this did not overtly affect the performance and it has given the company confidence that they could deliver another project of similar scope and time effectively again.

“If there's ever an opportunity, we'd love to be able to try our hand at it again because we've proved it, we've developed it. At the moment I would say many people just don’t really know that is out there and no one really discusses if they have a damaged wellhead or not. So we want to show, with this example, that this technology is available and we have the ability to remediate the wellhead with a less invasive strategy than what is currently out there. At OWI GOM we had some interested discussions around this and people seemed definitely interested so we shall see what the future holds.”

Schlumberger has officially changed its name to SLB in an effort to underline its vision for a decarbonised energy future and affirming its transformation to a global technology company focused on driving energy innovation for a balanced planet.

The legacy Schlumberger brand and nearly all of its affiliated brands will become one under the new SLB brand, which comes with a new logo and fresh identity.

Olivier Le Peuch, Chief Executive Officer, SLB, commented, “Today we face the world’s greatest balancing act – providing reliable, accessible and affordable energy to meet growing demand, while rapidly decarbonising for a sustainable future. This dual challenge requires a balance of energy affordability, energy security and sustainability. It requires a balance of innovation and decarbonisation in the oil and gas industry as well as clean energy solutions. It requires a balanced energy mix for a balanced planet.

“Our new identity symbolises SLB's commitment to moving farther and faster in facilitating the world's energy needs today and forging the road ahead for the energy transition. It’s a bold challenge. But the legacy of our people, technology and performance are unmatched, and we are ready to answer this challenge.”

The SLB brand builds on nearly a century of technology innovation and industrialisation expertise in the energy services industry. The company has spent the last three years laying the groundwork for its increasing focus on low – and zero –carbon energy technology solutions while continuing to drive innovation, decarbonisation and performance for the oil and gas industry.

This includes the launch of its New Energy business; its commitment to a net-zero target inclusive of total Scope 3 emissions from its technologies; the introduction of Transition Technologies to its portfolio; and the announcement of SLB End-to-end emissions Solutions.

With these foundations laid, SLB will now focus on delivering results-driven solutions for its customers across new energy systems, industrial decarbonisation, digital at scale and oil and gas innovation.

Katharina Beumelburg, Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer, SLB, remarked, “Our new identity boldly symbolises our ambition to accelerate the energy transition with sustainability at the centre of everything we do. Our new brand and strategy are built for this moment in our history. A moment that demands the need for a balanced energy system for our planet and the need to achieve and go beyond net zero to address the climate challenge.

“Everything we have chosen, from the shape of the logo to our new, bright blue colour, symbolises the boldness of our ambitions and ingenuity of our team to make the new energy future a reality. ’For a balanced planet’ is more than just our new tagline. It’s central to our purpose and our culture. It takes the incredible history of this world-class company, enhances it and moves it forward toward a more sustainable and net zero future.”

C-Innovation (C-I) and Grand Isle Shipyard, LLC (GIS), two strategic oil and gas industry partners, have been awarded a plug and abandonment contract by Helix Alliance Decom, LLC, to provide pre-feed services for the decommissioning of three offshore platforms for a major deepwater client.

In Phase I of the project, C-I provided ROV services to deliver marine water inspection and integrated the data within MODS software to provide live operations for the client operating fixed leg platforms in 165-200 ft of water. The GIS Aerobotics Drone Division provided aerial inspection services. The joint technical innovations aim to determine the current condition of the wells and the facility, enabling the timely and cost-effective decommissioning of the wells, platform and jacket for each of the three platforms.

The partnership harnessed its technology to offer increased safety margins. All of the inspections were able to be completed via line wireless transmission from the back of the boat within a connex box without requiring the deployment of personnel on ropes.

Michael MacMillan, Operations Manager, C-I, stated, “The equipment used took very little time to mobilise and provided subsea operations in a safe and efficient manner while using a limited number of personnel. The ability to launch this type of ROV from almost any asset not only allows operations to be efficient but also mitigates safety risks while practically eliminating the traditional risks associated with the launch and recovery of an ROV.”

DaCoda Bartels, GIS Aerobotics Division Manager and Pilot, said, “The GIS drone can safely operate from up to 100 ft away from the asset as we have the camera stabilisation technology to zoom in on an area of interest. Most of these areas are not accessible by human personnel. We are able to live stream the drone's camera view in real time to make informed decisions on the spot. It’s a super fast and super safe alternative, where the only potential risk is to the equipment rather than the personnel.”

MacMillan added, “Our partnership with GIS enables C-I to continue to demonstrate our flexibility to provide resources and equipment in a non-traditional scenario. The availability of equipment and personnel for these types of scopes is more important now than ever, due to the demands of today’s market.”

The Department of the Interior today has proposed a new rule to ensure offshore oil and gas operations on the Outer Continental Shelf are conducted with the utmost safety and oversight standards.

The proposition by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) will revise the 2019 Well Control Rule and focus on well integrity and blowout prevention. These innovations will help protect human lives and the environment by incorporating the latest technology and the lessons learned from operator experience and incident data since the current rule was adopted.

“Protecting human lives and the environment has always been BSEE’s highest priority, and this proposed rulemaking will further ensure safe and environmentally responsible offshore energy production,” said BSEE Director Kevin M. Sligh. “These proposed revisions to the Well Control Rule are the result of knowledge and experience gained by stakeholders and BSEE since the 2019 rule was implemented. They will protect workers’ lives and the environment from the potentially devastating effects of blowouts and offshore oil spills.”

In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010, BSEE adopted several recommendations from multiple investigation teams to improve the safety of offshore energy operations, leading to the publication of the 2016 Well Control Rule. In May 2019, BSEE published a final rule that weakened certain safety provisions. Today’s proposed rule would revise some of the items that were amended or rescinded in 2019.

To further protect human lives and the environment, the Department is proposing revisions that would:

• Require blowout preventer systems (BOPs) to be able to close and seal the wellbore to the well’s kick tolerance design at all times;
• Remove the option for operators to submit failure data to designated third parties and instead require the direct submittal of failure data to BSEE;
• Require failure analysis and investigations to start within 90 days instead of 120 days;
• Require independent third parties to be accredited by a qualified standards development organisation;
• Specify that surface BOPs on existing floating facilities must follow the dual shear ram requirements when replacing an entire BOP stack;
• Require that remotely operated vehicles be capable of opening and closing each shear ram on a BOP; 
• Require the operator to provide test results to BSEE within 72 hours after completion of the tests if BSEE is unable to witness testing.

Publication of the proposed rule also initiates a 60-day public comment period. 

Schlumberger, Aker Solutions and Subsea 7 today have announced an agreement to form a joint venture which will help customers unlock reserves, reduce time to first oil and lower development costs while simultaneously delivering on their decarbonisation objectives.

The proposed joint venture will comprise the subsea businesses of Schlumberger and Aker Solutions, with Subsea 7 purchasing 10% of the joint venture for US$306.5mn. This combination brings together deep reservoir domain and engineering design expertise, an extensive field-proven subsea production and processing technology portfolio, world-class manufacturing scale and capabilities, and a comprehensive suite of life-of-field solutions to customers all over the world.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals as well as other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close during the second half of 2023.

The board of directors of the joint venture will consist of three representatives from Schlumberger, two from Aker Solutions and one from Subsea 7. As part of the transaction, the new joint venture will form part of Subsea Integration Alliance, currently an unincorporated alliance between Schlumberger and Subsea 7.

Olivier Le Peuch, Chief Executive Officer of Schlumberger, said, “This joint venture will bring together world-class businesses that are uniquely positioned to provide subsea technologies to help our customers improve recovery and reduce overall subsea development costs. Customers will benefit from enhanced services that leverage digital and technology innovation to drive improved performance while increasing energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions.”

Kjetel Digre, Chief Executive Officer of Aker Solution, commented, “By combining our strong and complimentary competence and technologies, this compelling combination will deliver an industry step change that will benefit our customers, employees and significantly increase shareholder value. The offshore market activity is increasing, and this joint venture will drive enhanced offerings both in terms of subsea production economics and low-carbon solutions.”

John Evans, Chief Executive Officer of Subsea 7, added, “We are excited to build on our highly successful alliance with Schlumberger and partnership with Aker Solutions. This new joint venture is a critical step as we collaborate on the integrated subsea projects that drive maximum value for our customers.”

Baker Hughes is set to acquire Quest Integrity, a subsidiary of Team, Inc. and a global leader in the development and delivery of technology-enabled asset inspection and reliability management solutions across the pipeline, refining, petrochemical and power generation sectors.

Baker Hughes’ asset integrity solutions include pipeline inspection services that detect, characterise, locate and size anomalies in the wall of a pipeline that might potentially compromise its integrity. Quest Integrity’s technology will expand this capability to support ‘difficult-to-inspect’ pipelines where the construction or operation of the line does not allow for conventional inline inspection methods to yield reliable results.

The acquisition includes Quest Integrity’s Invista and Furnace Tube Inspection (FTIS) technology. Invista enables new inspection capability that extends across pipelines, marine loading lines, petrochemical, chemical, refining, power, utility and other industrial segments and facilities, such as airports. FTIS technology applies the same principles to enable the inspection of heater coils, a critical component in furnaces, detecting issues with corrosion and deformation for customers in the petrochemical and refining industries.

Quest Integrity also brings significant engineering expertise, with a focus on conducting critical assessments to deliver actionable insights and verify asset integrity across a diverse range of industrial assets such as pipelines, pressure vessels, tanks, and turbine blades.

Rami Qasem, Executive Vice President of Digital Solutions at Baker Hughes, commented, “The acquisition of Quest Integrity marks another step in Baker Hughes’ commitment to help customers ensure their asset infrastructure is safe and reliable and demonstrates how we continue to invest for growth in this area. Today’s announcement strengthens Baker Hughes’ unique capability to bring holistic industrial asset management services to our customers.”

The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 of 2022 and will be integrated into the Process & Pipeline Services product line within Baker Hughes’ Digital Solutions segment.

Nauticus Robotics, Inc., a developer of subsea and surface robotic services using autonomy software, has entered into an agreement with Shell to advance to the qualification phase for a more efficient means of acquiring subsea integrity data utilising Nauticus’ Aquanaut and Hydronaut robotic platforms.

The collaboration will enable Shell to add an advanced tool to its subsea asset integrity management lineup with the potential to improve subsea operations. Shell and Nauticus will collaborate with the industry’s leading inspection tooling service providers, to fully integrate into Nauticus’ robotic service solution.

An initial feasibility study for the phase-gated project was recently completed, and the team will now move onto the operational qualification phase, which focuses on remote operations of the robotic duo using supervised autonomy and tool control using Nauticus’ acoustic communication networking technology. The collaboration is targeting the preliminary work required for an offshore pilot project.

Todd Newell, SVP of Business Development at Nauticus, commented, “Working with a leading company such as Shell marks an exciting milestone for Nauticus, and this collaboration further validates the superior capabilities and extensive use cases of our robots across the energy sector. Implementing our supervised autonomous method – one that has proven more robust and dynamic than most of its kind – is expected to provide our partner and future customers more than 50% cost savings compared to today’s methods of operation.”

This collaboration will utilise the Nauticus’ flagship and fully electric subsea robot, Aquanaut, which is deployed from the company’s small surface vessel, Hydronaut –used for the transport, recharge, and communication for Aquanaut, among other tasks. Together, this robotic pair will function as a unified solution to bring a new means of conducting subsea work to the offshore services industry. Their inherent autonomous architectures will allow a transition to far more autonomous operations over conventional solutions.

“An exciting aspect of this project is the opportunity to combine the strengths of advanced inspection tooling with the advanced marine robotic capabilities developed by Nauticus Robotics,” said Ross Doak, Deepwater Robotics Engineer of Shell’s robotics team. “This project aims to fundamentally improve how we collect subsea facility data, through the combination of ‘AUV native’ tooling design, supervised autonomy, and recent improvements in remote communications.”

Logan Industries International Corporation, a machine designer, manufacturer, field service and repair company, has successfully delivered a unique, space saving coiled tubing (CT) reeler suite for OneSubsea.

Logan’s CT reelers are coiled tubing winches, where the reelers provide full torque control for the tubing without the need for a standard injector head. This reduces space required compared to standard tubing reeler / injection head combination, and allows for a larger fluid storage footprint on deck. When the equipment required to handle CT has a small footprint, more deck space can be dedicated to hauling fluid, which increases profitability for the operator.

This is the first unit Logan has delivered with a removable drum, which means the unit footprint can remain static on the vessel while the drums can be taken to a shore base for unspooling and respooling. They are transported in a purpose-built DNV lift rated drum basket, fully secured and protected. The swap out drum also makes the machine faster to build, reducing typical assembly time for the drum and drive train from two weeks to two days.  

At 15,000 psi working pressure, 10,000 feet of 2 in. CT was provided on the drum, with live swivel and isolation valves on the unit. The suite of equipment provided for this work includes a spare drum, adapter to allow it to fit into most tubing service spoolers at the tubing manufacturer’s facilities, transport basket and lifting set along with the reeler, HPU, control stand and interconnect lines. Logan also provided a purpose-built overboarding platform with a translating / clamshell to accommodate OneSubsea’s unique end connection philosophy.  

Dean Carey, Technical Director, Logan, commented, “We placed a work deck, dimple connector, test tool, controls and safeguards on this overboarding platform to give the crew plenty of access to the volume of space under the overboarding point. The overboarding platform also provided a reeler deck loading spreader effect on the vessel’s deck. We believe this is truly the next evolution in coiled tubing deployment offshore, and provides significantly more convenience for our customers. This is one of the most comprehensive reeler equipment suites Logan has had the pleasure to provide, and we expect it to remain in service for quite some time.”