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.”
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.”
Halliburton Company has completed the installation of the industry's first single trip, electro-hydraulic wet connect in deepwater for Petrobras in Brazil, marking a significant achievement in downhole electric completion technology.
The Halliburton Fuzion EH electro-hydraulic downhole wet-mate connector helps increase well recovery factors by maintaining integrity of Halliburton's SmartWell completion systems throughout the well's lifecycle. It helps further facilitate safer and simpler intervention operations and avoids potential formation damage because of workover operations.
Halliburton plans a future version of a dual trip system Fuzion-EH connector for qualification and implementation by Petrobras in 2023. This system will provide additional benefits in SmartWell system installations while maintaining the benefits of the single trip system.
Mark Dawson, Vice President of Halliburton Completion Technology, Halliburton, commented, “The Fuzion-EH connector is the first step in the fully electric intelligent completion journey and is a product of collaborative development with Petrobras and Shell. This achievement paves the way for us to give customers the autonomous capability to control and manage reservoirs across their wells and assets and deliver on our Future of Completions.”
Olivier Wambersie, General Manager Brazil Technology, Shell, added, “This significant well technology development marks the first single trip, multiple zones, open hole completion. It was a remarkable example of teamwork, partnership and technical collaboration between operators and Halliburton in the Brazilian ecosystem. This technology's first application was enabled using the ANP Levy.”
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.
Blue Ocean Seismic Services, the marine seismic survey disruptor, has completed a series of passive and active seismic trials proving the quality of seismic data collection, putting the company on track to commence pre-commercial trials during the second half of 2023.
Backed by industry leaders bp Ventures, Woodside Energy and Blue Ocean Monitoring, the UK/Australian tech company is developing the world’s first fleet of autonomous low-impact subsea nodes for capturing high-quality seismic data from the ocean floor for multiple applications such as offshore wind, oil and gas, and CCS. These underwater vehicles will transform the offshore seismic sector to become more affordable, faster, safer, environmentally friendly and significantly less carbon intensive.
Since its last update, the company has undertaken substantial further testing in Plymouth, the North Sea and Australia towards confirming the effectiveness of command and control systems, underwater flight performance, seismic coupling and active seismic data acquisition.
Focusing on the recent North Sea active seismic trial, the company achieved its technology and data collection objectives, including:
*Acquiring additional cycles of active seismic data with its alpha vehicles (AP-OBSrV) alongside conventional ocean-bottom nodes (OBNs)
*Testing engineering solutions for optimisations identified in the previous (August 2021) trials
*Confirming the ability of the AP-OBSrV to maintain a close seismic coupling with the seabed, especially where cross currents exist.
These objectives were all achieved in the active seismic survey, in particular confirming that the geophysical performance is on track. With this confirmation, the company will continue its rapid progression towards the commencement of commercial operations in 2024, starting with the assembly of up to 250 OBSrV version 1 nodes (based on the AP-OBSrV design) in batches, with pre-commercial trials in H2 2023.
Before commencing pre-commercial trials in H2 2023, the company is progressing discussions with industry partners regarding their strong interest in our services and pre-qualifying for future tender opportunities. In addition, following substantial interest from potential customers, the company also plans to open a new office in Houston, Texas, in Q1 2023, in line with its strategy to establish a presence in key markets.
Blue Ocean Seismic Services is delighted to announce the appointment of Fabio Mancini, PhD, as Chief Geophysicist. Fabio joins Blue Ocean Seismic Services from Woodside Energy where he was Chief Geophysicist from 2018. He has extensive industry experience; he spent five years at TotalEnergies in R&D and operations, working on projects covering both seismic processing and acquisition. He subsequently moved to Hess, where he worked in the Exploration and Production Technology team and was in charge of Hess’s seismic activities for the Eastern Hemisphere. He then moved to Australia to join Woodside where he covered several roles over 10 years.
Simon Illingworth, Managing Director and CEO, Blue Ocean Seismic Services, said, “The successful results of the various pre-commercialisation trials over recent months are the culmination of a huge amount of work by the Blue Ocean Seismic Services team and represent a massive leap forward on our path to full commercialisation. We are now in an excellent position to continue with the operational scale up of the business, engaging with government regulators in our key initial markets and begin commercial operations in 2024. Substantial investment is also being made in securing components for our initial inventory of pre-commercial vehicles.
“As a leading figure in the subsea exploration sector, it is a huge endorsement to have someone of Fabio’s calibre join the business, he will bring considerable expertise and experience to the team as we move to the next phase of our development.”
Mancini said, “I am very excited to be joining the team at Blue Ocean Seismic Services. As one of the co-inventors I look forward to realising the vision of transforming seismic acquisition in the years ahead.”
Global well integrity and production optimisation firm, Coretrax, has created a casing integrity solution for a major North Sea operator which is said to eliminate the need for a casing string to be replaced.
The project saw a team of three engineers identify and mobilise the trouble zone, and install a short patch on a casing section of the well affected by corrosion.
To pinpoint the trouble zone, the engineers deployed its CX-RTP (retrievable test packer), a heavy-duty service packer used to set and pressure test a range of depths to identify the area in need of patching.
Following the identification of the trouble zone, the company deployed its ReLine HYD expandable casing patch to isolate the area and regain well integrity without the costs associated with replacing the casting.
Western Hemisphere President at Coretrax, Keith Bradford, said, “Our team of engineers worked collaboratively to identify how we could combine technologies from across our portfolio to effectively meet our client’s objectives. We mobilise products from CORE, our expandable tubular product line, and packers from our AEON line which we use for plug and abandonment solutions.
“The outcome was a great success and allowed our client to not only continue operations with minimal disruption or downtime, but also potentially saved costs on replacing the entire casing string.”
The project was completed in five days.
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