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• Region: All
• Date: Dec, 2020

The Helix Intervention Tension Frame (ITF) was implemented after Helix Energy Solutions approached OSBIT with a well intervention problem; how to deploy tools safely from a vessel.

OSBIT responded with a tension frame that is constrained onto a vessel so that it slides only vertically with the craft allowing them to establish a walk-to-work system and allowing a relatively large ITF compared to the vessel. The ITF has three platform levels, is accessible via a telescopic gangway and removes the need for engineers to use rope access systems. This means that from a relatively small vessel, a suite of tools can be exchanged without having to come off the well in addition to the swift manoeuvring of personnel.

With the ITF, Helix vessels productivity is greatly enhanced, with crews able to quickly access the wells, use the tools they have, and move from well to well and tooling suite to tooling suite safely and effectively. This ensures that the right people are at the right equipment at the right time, and that maintenance can be carried out as swiftly as possible.

In use on Helix Siem vessels in Brazil the integrated system is field tested, with noticeable benefits such as reducing the time taken to switch between wireline and coil tubing operations (and back again) from days to just a few hours. It has also had a marked improvement on safety with the Siem Helix 2 recently completing 500 days without an LTI.

David Carr, Senior Vice-President of International Development at Helix Energy Solutions commented, “The three ITFs that were built for us by OSBIT have had an outsize effect on increasing the safety and efficiency of our most recent three vessels. Just being able to switch operational modes to go from wireline to coil tubing in a manner of hours is saving our customers significant rig time. More importantly they provide a safe compensated platform for our crews to work at height and because of that we have been able to completely eliminate man riding from these vessels. We are extremely happy with the safe working environment that the ITF brings to Helix.”

For the ITF project, OSBIT was shortlisted for Most Innovative Solution at the OWI Global Awards 2020, capping a positive year for the company despite the pandemic. At the start of the year, OSBIT was awarded a contract by FTAI Ocean, a subsidiary of Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC, to develop and construct a new well intervention tower system and has also recently appointed Robbie Blakeman as joint managing director to reflect the ambitions of the company as it seeks to continue its success and growth into 2021.

• Region: All
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: Dec, 2020

The chicken or the egg? Which comes first in the path to digitalisation; people, technology or process?

Vaseem Khan, Global Vice President of Digital & Analytics and Head of Innovation at McDermott International, hosted the webinar entitled ‘Digital Transformation: The Challenge of Change’ as panellists discussed the most appropriate path for digitalisation within the energy sector.

Khan began by outlining that over the past two decades digitalisation has grown in every facet of life. From retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, etc, every industry is embracing the digital revolution and yet the energy sector is holding back. The host sought to explore this issue, and draw from the expertise and experience of his fellow panellists to help businesses undertake their own digitalisation journey.

Esther Diederen, People and Process Transformation Team Lead at Spirit Energy, pointed at the importance of people and processes that, in many ways, supersedes the technology. The Spirit Energy representative commented, “You need a lot more than just having technology, you need people onside and correct processes in place. Without optimising processes you are not going to get value from the technology. The most important thing is you have to get people who want to use the technology; you need to train them, have them understand why they are using it, and make them see the benefit. Just putting technology out there and thinking the world is going to change is not going to work.”

In agreement with this, Jaco Fok, Chief of Innovation at OMV Petrom, stated, “To me it starts with the people. 70% of digital success is the people. In our case we installed a refinery dashboard which was well set up, but only a handful of people could actually use it. There was a whole data warehouse with valuable data barely used.” Fok continued to outline his company’s approach to digitalisation where employees were given the tools for their own installation and education in new technology, with supporting networks. After undertaking this, they now have hundreds of people able to consume data made available by new technology. But Fok warned that the process was difficult, and he was taken aback by the amount of people who had dropped out of the course.

“It is easy to spend a lot of money [on technology] without defining what the value is,” commented Steve Johnson, Digital Vice-President at Petrofac. “You need to take people on the journey. Ask yourself; transformation for what aim? Where are you going? From Petrofac’s perspective, transformation has several different dynamics. We could transform to go into a different market, enhance services or drive down costs. Make sure your starting point is clear about the transformation goals, it provides the ability to bring everything together with a clear target and common objectives. What’s been most successful for us is we had a clear process from corporate right through to individual service lines.”

James Elgenes, Leading Advisor for Exploration and Digitalisation at Equinor, noted, “Now more than ever digital technology is the catalyst for change, and this is only partly about technology. It is about the people and the culture. Too often there is a focus on the technology side and communications, with flash products like virtual reality and drones, but that is a tiny part of what digitalisation is all about.”

Advising on how to start the digitalisation programme Elgenes stated, “You need to start small and gain momentum. Show concrete examples and quick wins and then scale the project to incentivise people more and more. We are starting to see bottom line value in the industry but to get more we need cultural momentum, high energy, enthusiasm and excitement. We want to be a part of this.”

Concluding the session, Kham summarised, “People. Collaboration. Processes. Technology. I don’t think there is an alternative to digitalisation and the industry is moving in that direction. Collaboration is the key; we mustn’t build islands of digitalisation but all of us - owners, operators and service providers - need to work together to deliver. The challenge is that we need to go into this with eyes wide open.”

• Region: West Africa
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: Dec, 2020

• Region: All
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: Dec, 2020

Hosted by Claire Kinloch, CEO of Genoa Black, and her colleague Rob Potter, Strategy Director, the winners of the prestigious OWI Global Awards 2020 were announced at a virtual ceremony on the 3 December.

Kinloch and Potter welcomed everyone in attendance by first acknowledging all the work that was put in behind the scenes from the organisers, who were able to orchestrate the event despite the disruptions of Covid-19, through to the expert panel of judges who put in many hours to painstakingly separate the winners from the fierce competition.

For each category the judges guided attendees through the submissions, demonstrating the quality, ingenuity and in many examples the courage that was displayed in each shortlist before announcing the winners. The projects exhibited were beyond commendable and highlighted the resilience that the industry had shown in the face of an incredibly difficult year, but for each category there could only be one winner:

HSE Innovation:
Winner: Tios
Submission: Transfer Hose Hang Off Unit
Judges comments: “HSE is obviously in their corporate culture.”

Most Impactful Technology:
Winner: Well-SENSE
Submission: FiberLine Intervention- Next Generation Well Surveillance
Judges comments: “Giving operators new options.”
Craig Feherty, FLI Director: “For us, we see a challenge environmentally every day in terms of logistics and costs. We needed to come up with solutions for customers to collect the data they needed and so we invented the new intervention system to simplify how to collect data.”

Best Example of Collaboration:
Winner: Oil Spill Response Limited
Project: Subsea Well Response Project
Judges comments: “Huge for the industry and shows brilliant initiative.”
Andy Myers, SWIS Director: “We are very proud to be custodians of this equipment and associated services on behalf of our subscribers and we look forward to facilitating continued collaboration between our subscribers to help ensure response readiness for subsea oil response.”

Best Project Outcome:
Winner: Helix Energy Solutions Group
Project: Interventions on Nigeria’s Erha field with their Q7000 and Schlumberger
Judges comments: “Integration at its best.”
David Carr, Senior Vice-President of International Development at Helix Well Ops: “Quite timely we completed that project at the start of this year, Covid meant the vessel had to retreat to Tenerife. But I am glad to say that this week the vessel will return to Nigeria. We have further projects with Total, Chevron, Shell to complete next year. I would like to give a shout out to our partners, Schlumberger, for their excellent performance on the job and especially to our Nigerian partners without whom the job would not have been possible at all.”

Significant Contribution to the Industry:
Winner: OneSubsea
Project: Subsea Field Production Enhancement Solution
Judges comments: “This technology could be applied to all subsea wells”
Mike Avery, Sales Engineer: “Thank you to our customers for the opportunity to collaborate with and work alongside on this exciting project, the Schlumberger team, the management for the vision and guidance, the sales teams for nurturing the opportunity, the projects and engineers for developing the technologies, field service  for implementing them offshore and all the support functions for helping deliver a safe service. This was truly a massive team effort.”

Most Innovative Solution:
Winner: Barge Master
Project: Deep Water Floating Drill Operation using motion compensation
Judges comments: “Their Compensation platform performs a lot of flexibility for a wide range of operations.”

Kinloch and Potter concluded the ceremony by extending their personal congratulations to each winner and applauding each and every submission which contributed to such a fantastic and competitive competition. Successful events such as the OWI Awards are a testament to the offshore industry’s strength, cohesion and resourcefulness, as Kinloch noted; without the extensive support from within the industry events like this could not go ahead. Such a celebration of the best in well intervention in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic is a promising sign for the future of the industry.

To hear further details on the award entries submitted for the competition, the Technical Webinar hosted by Offshore Network is being held on the 3 February 2021. Register here: https://offsnet.com/owi-awards/technical

• Region: Australia
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: Nov, 2020

• Region: Australia
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: Dec, 2020

• Region: North Sea
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: July, 2020

See the latest well intervention training from Seaflo and understand how this can increase your project efficiency

• Region: North Sea
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: May, 2020

The TITAN RS System - Combining our field proven BHA Systems with a Ardyne developed resonance tool to aid casing recovery by reducing the pulling force required to free stuck casing. Successful trial wells have been completed recovering casing encased settled solids.

View our introduction video below - To find out more about the TITAN RS System please contact us.

• Region: North Sea
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: May, 2020

Ardyne’s toolbox approach creates a 62m window for open hole sidetrack, saving 14 days planned rig time

• Region: North Sea
• Topics: All Topics, Integrity
• Date: May, 2020

Gain insight into how to create a best practice Well Integrity Management System (WIMS)

• Region: Asia Pacific

This month’s video demonstrates how certainty allows for better and faster decision making and evaluate the tubing conditions of multiple sub-sea completed wells pre-abandonment.

EV was requested by a global operator to perform a multi well campaign. EV’s Optis HD Electric line camera was used to inspect the tubing conditions of multiple sub-sea completed wells pre-abandonment.

• Region: Latin America
• Topics: All Topics
• Date: Oct, 2019

Hear Christian Kruger, VP Account Manager of Welltec discuss how powered mechanical interventions can help solve P&A challenges