products in action- November 2011

Mooring Chevron's Jack/St Malo

More than 164,000ft of polyester mooring rope plus accessories and field inspection support services are to be supplied by Parker Hannifin's energy products division for Chevron's Jack/ St Malo floating production unit. The mooring line, to be installed in 7000ft water depths in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf of Mexico, will have a maximum breaking load of 22,563kN (2301t), hailed as the highest yet for a deepwater project.

Parker Scanrope, the company's mooring business unit, is reported to have surpassed this maximum breaking load during the qualification phase, maxing out at 24,960kN. The rope will be delivered by Parker's integrated manufacturing facility on Norway's Oslo fjord.

Valhall revisited The third Life of Field Seismic (LoFS) survey over Norway's Valhall field was completed mid-October by WGP Exploration. LoFS was permanently installed over the field in 2003 with 120km of ocean bottom cable. Last year operator BP contracted WGP to continue the provision of the precisely positioned source sub-arrays which help maintain the high level of repeatability required for effective permanent reservoir monitoring. Now in its ninth year, and its 14th survey, the Valhall LoFS project continues to provide high quality data mapping over time, giving BP analysts vital insight into the geophysical and fluid movements of the field. For the latest survey WGP again utilised Thalassa Energy Services' containerised seismic source system, which was fully installed during a four-day mobilisation period onto the back deck of the Stril Myster. ‘The financial, technological and logistical benefits of using Thalassa's Portable Modular Source System (PMSS) to convert a regular and available Valhall field platform supply vessel into a highly capable seismic source vessel twice a year, or whenever required, speak for themselves,' commented Marcus Smith, WGP's operations manager.

De-risking exploration

The Play-to-Prospect Risk plug-in has been released by Schlumberger for the Petrel E&P software platform. This technology offers an integrated petroleum-system-based assessment to consistently evaluate key risk elements from play to prospect.

The new plug-in takes geological elements – trap, reservoir, charge and seal – and converts them into chance maps through a suite of transform methods. Scenarios are compared to determine play limits and identify areas for high grading to support rapid ranking of opportunities. The process seamlessly migrates from play-scale to prospect-level assessment, all within Petrel.

Consistent workflows for play-to-prospect risk assessment across teams provide a standard method for evaluating study areas with a clear audit trail. The plug-in calculates the mean economic case for potential field development and the probabilistic economic resource case – based on the minimum economic reserve parameter for the geographic area.

‘Statistics show that, on average, two of three frontier exploration wells today are unsuccessful, indicating that we as an industry still fail to properly manage exploration risk,' said Tony Bowman, president of Schlumberger Information Solutions. ‘While seismic technology advances have enabled better evaluation of trap and reservoir risks, almost three-quarters of dry exploration wells are due to an inadequate understanding of charge and seal risk. With the new Play-to-Prospect Risk plug-in, oil and gas companies have a standardized process that integrates petroleumsystem- based assessment to better understand charge and seal risk.'

PORT IN A STORM: Storm-damaged structures and equipment recovered after the Gryphon FPSO moved off station in the UK North Sea this February are being handled and disposed of by Aberdeenheadquartered TWMA under a six-figure contract from operator Maersk Oil. T he TWMA workscope covers onshore handling, cleaning and cutting of subsea structures including risers, riser bases, flowlines, umbilicals, mid-water arches and mattresses. The firm will maximise recycling and reuse options for all recovered materials brought to its onshore waste transfer station in Vatster Gott, Shetland. ‘We anticipate that 95% of the subsea material recovered from the Gryphon field will either be reused or recycled, thus dramatically reducing the volume of waste sent for landfill,' said TWMA's environmental services division manager Brian Henderson. S ubsea arches from Gryphon are pictured on the quayside at Lerwick harbour.

Goliat going online

ABB and the SPT Group are joining forces to deliver the Flow Assurance System (FAS) and the subsea part of the Operator Training Simulator (OTS) for the Eni-operated Goliat field, the first oil field developed in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea.

The industry-leading OLGA dynamic multiphase flow simulator will be used as the core tool for monitoring the subsea production system and critical production parameters throughout Goliat's anticipated 10-15 year field life. ‘The online simulator solution adds significant value to planning and operation,' said Knut Erik Spilling, SPT senior vice president for Global e-Field Solutions. ‘Teaming up with the world leading automation vendor ABB, we provide Goliat with a unique and powerful solution.

‘Models built in OLGA are accessible, proven and trusted by the industry. Open, reusable and modifiable models support project continuity from early design through operations and asset management.'

Continuously monitoring the full production system from wells to the topside receiving facility, the FAS incorporates virtual flow metering of all the production wells and tailored deduction testing. The system also covers applications and functions for handling critical operational issues such as well-testing, hydrates, wax deposition and slugging. Running the FAS into the future will allow seamless advance warnings and alarms displayed in the ABB control system.

The OLGA models built for the engineering studies are adapted by SPT Group for use in the OTS, and interfaced to INDISS dynamic process simulator delivered by the simulation company RSI and a control & safety system from ABB. This provides operators integrated training on the full scope of the production system and processing facility. In addition to training for normal operation, instructors can set up failure modes for training on abnormal situations. Challenging scenarios modeled in OLGA include hydrate formation, MEG injection and ramp-up.

Extended-reach davits

Specialist Norwegian davit supplier Vestdavit has been contracted by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry on behalf of Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) to design and supply extra-long outreach workboat/ lifeboat/FRC davits for the marine seismic contractor's two fifth generation Ramform newbuilds.

The two davits for each of these vessels, being built by Mitsubishi in Japan for 2013 delivery, will have an extralong outswing to be capable of launching and recovering 20-man tender boats safely in heavy seas. A special H-10000S dual point hydraulic davit with a dual winch system was designed for the application.

Vestdavit development manager Atle Kalve said his company's latest offering would make deployment and retrieval safer for PGS' crews. ‘The tender boats will normally be used in relatively calm sea states, but are constructed to handle safely even in sea state 6, and these davits will recover them safely in those seas,' he added.

The characteristic Ramform design seismic survey vessel has only a short flat parallel ship side for the boat to lie against. To overcome this, a painter boom travelling 12m – the longest ever supplied by Vestdavit – will be employed. Both boom and davits are computer controlled with inbuilt auto tension and shock absorption to allow the boat to launch and recover safely in high seas.

SENSING TROUBLE: Wideband acoustic monitoring technology from Sonardyne has been selected for the intervention capping stack built by Trendsetter Engineering and to be kept on standby in north Houston for deployment by the Helix Well Containment Group in the event of a future deepwater Gulf of Mexico well control incident.  During an emergency, the supplied Sonardyne data acquisition system would be used to remotely monitor pressure and temperature sensors fitted to the capping stack. The system, pictured here on the upper left of the capping stack, consists of a Surface Command Unit, intelligent Deep Acoustic Remote Transducers (DARTs) and a Subsea Electronics Module (SEM) that is capable of transmitting data at high speed to the surface for immediate analysis.  Mario Lugo, president of Trendsetter Engineering said: ‘The performance of Sonardyne's wideband signal technology during the Macondo incident was a key factor for its selection. The technology was shown to work reliably in areas of extreme subsea noise.'

DP at the double Finnish dynamic positioning systems supplier Navis Engineering has been contracted by Dutch integrator Alphatron Marine to supply DP1 systems for the nine multi-purpose ‘Sea Axe' Fast Crew Suppliers currently under construction at Damen Shipyards in the Netherlands. These innovative vessels will be deployed mostly as offshore support vessels. Designed for highspeed operation and equipped with powerful propulsion, they have only recently been designated for stationkeeping deployment.  The NavDP4000 dynamic positioning system is part of the overall bridge package delivered by Alphatron Marine.  The multi-command chair will permit vessel control from a seated position. All the DP systems will have Bureau Veritas DYNAPOS AM/AT classification.  Having delivered more than 350 DP systems for different vessel types, Navis Engineering claims to have been the first DP manufacturer to cope successfully with the problem of precise positioning of the lightweight low displacement crew boat in 2002.

Descaling development Specialist downhole tool provider Peak Well Systems has followed up the initial field trials of its 41/2in Torque Action Debris Breaker with a smaller version designed for 27/8- 41/2in tubing where the build-up of scale reduces productivity. In its first deployment with service provider SGS Australia, the tool is reported to have significantly reduced intervention time by over one-and-a-half days on one well. The 27/8in version of the impactdriven Torque Action Debris Breaker has been deployed by SGS for a major oil & gas company on a project for which Peak supplied all the toolstrings. To date, the new version has been used in 27/8in tubing and the results are already far exceeding expectations on site, according to Stuart Taylor, SGS operations manager. ‘We used Peak's Torque Action Debris Breaker on a problem well and it has proven to be a complete success,' he said. ‘The programme of scale removal usually takes two full days but with this tool, the tubing was opened up within six hours.' The tool is jarred down mechanically in the well, and its corkscrew design causes it to twist and break the solids build-up. The main tool is designed to fit a 27/8-41/2in well and comes with a number of different sizes of shoes which can be easily changed on the main body of the tool as the scale is broken down, until it is removed completely.