Expro, a leading international oilfield services company, has successfully completed an integrated plug and abandonment (P&A) contract valued at more than US$20mn for a subsidiary of PETRONAS, PC Mauritania 1 Pty Ltd (PCMPL), which manages offshore operations in Mauritania, West Africa.
The well intervention scope of the P&A project utilised Expro’s integrated Open Water Intervention Riser System (OWIRS) for successful intervention and barrier placement on 15 wells for PCMPL’s Chinguetti Field Phase II works. The system’s compact nature provided considerable time savings by retrieving the subsea trees without an additional run. This was further enhanced by the efficient parallel deployment of the OWIRS and rig blow out preventor from the auxiliary well and primary well centre through the rig’s dual derrick capabilities.
Expro’s onshore project management team, based in Kuala Lumpur and locally onshore in Mauritania, supported PCMPL throughout the project planning and execution phases. Expro provided a range of integrated services, including the subsea well access system, surface flowhead, umbilicals, topsides control equipment and installation and an intervention workover control system (IWOCS) package for controlling both the OWIRS and Xmas tree systems. Worldwide Oilfield Machine (WOM) worked closely with Expro as an alliance partner providing the subsea well access system and a technical support team.
Graham Cheyne, Expro’s Vice President of Well Access and Subsea, commented, “The OWIRS system is a highly reliable compact system with an extensive track record in riser to surface subsea well access operations. This system performed over 250 functions during the project with 100% operational uptime and no non-productive time (NPT) incurred. To further demonstrate its reliability post operation, a gas testing programme of work was successfully performed on completion of the 15 wells, prior to any post job maintenance being carried out and before readiness for the next project.
“This campaign was our first venture into the intervention riser system market. Despite the logistical and HSE challenges created by the global pandemic, we are proud to have demonstrated our technology’s success and integrated ability for these types of subsea P&A operations, supported by our team’s extraordinary performance, commitment, flexibility and dedication to PCMPL.
“The campaign’s success, combined with our continued expansion of our subsea well access offering, has helped us to secure several new contracts across Asia and Australia, enhancing Expro’s already strong presence in the subsea well access market.”
Sustained growth expected
Expro’s second quarter results show that the company delivered solid financial and operational performance, including 13% sequential revenue growth globally, and particularly strong growth in its Europe and sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA) and Asia regions, as demand increased for production optimisation services.
Mike Jardon, Expro’s CEO commented that the company is seeing “strong signals of a multi-year recovery” and is expecting sustained growth across all of its businesses and geo-markets.
“We currently expect at least modest revenue and margin momentum for Expro over the next couple of quarters, driven by an overall increase in international activity, and positive trends in well testing and production services and well intervention and integrity services, in particular,” he said.
“Beyond the next couple of quarters, an expected recovery in offshore development across geographies reinforces our confidence that Expro is well-positioned for sustained growth, which we believe will be driven by increasing demand for subsea well access services and more complex well construction services, respective strengths of Expro and Frank’s International with whom we announced a definitive merger agreement on March 11, 2021.”
