When it comes to smart, or wise, ways to carry out subsea interventions, Wright's Well Control Services founder David Wright is a man of many ideas. Jennifer Pallanich catches up with him to discuss his company's latest kit and some of its recently completed projects.
Developed this year for interventions and to carry out P&A operations, Wright's Intervention Subsea Equipment (Wise) features three main components – a lower package, the BOP assembly, and the lubricator with pressure control assembly – with a total of seven barriers. Of those, says David Wright, founder and president of Wright's Well Control Services (WWCS), four of the barriers can be shut in 30 seconds or less.
Wright says he turns to deepwater operations manager Fernando Hernandez when he wants a concept he's dreamt up to become reality. Hernandez, whose subsea and deepwater background includes a focus on ROV tooling and automated controls as well as both well and subsea intervention, says he works with Wright to refine the ideas into a workable piece of kit or system. ‘We'll fact-check each other's ideas,' Hernandez says.
The pair work well and quickly together. For instance, Wise for the 3in bore went from concept to delivery in six weeks. Pointing to an image of the 3in Wise system BOP overboard, Hernandez says, ‘We were able to do this in six weeks. What can we do in a year?'
During the development process, Hernandez says, ‘we thought of all the contingent and no-contingent operations'. The BOP system only needs four umbilical lines, he says, which reduces costs. While the tree or running tool may need more lines, the BOP itself only needs the four lines, he clarifies. Hernandez says he ensures various pieces of kit are ROV – and diver-friendly. ‘An ROV can't turn a 5/32in wrench,' he says, noting details like that are important to keep in mind while designing equipment. ‘Everyone thinks of the engineers. I think of the technicians.'
Also intended for riserless operations, the Wise system uses hydraulic energy stored in accumulators on the BOP. For contingent operations, a topside controller actuates a subsea valve system via acoustic signal. The action causes the accumulators to release and engage all safety barriers.
The safety barriers kick in by themselves, Hernandez says. ‘For lack of a better term, it has its own safety memory.' If there's a problem at the surface with no communications ‘it doesn't matter', he adds. ‘You have a well that goes out of control, these barriers will go into action' based on a preset trigger.
The 3in Wise BOP has already carried out some abandonment projects from a Cal Dive vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. It's one of three Wise systems WWCS plans to make available to the industry in the short term.
‘Demand is growing,' Hernandez believes. WWCS currently has only one unit available in the 3in size, he notes, but the company is developing more units. So far, he notes, WWCS has completed four projects for four different operators in water depths to 1500ft. ‘That means different trees, an entirely different set up that we have to address and meet when we're out there,' he says.
A second system, for 61/4in, will be rated to 1800ft of water and 9000psi and is expected to become available in later this year. ‘Once we get past the 2000ft range, we'll go to the big system, the 71/16in BOPs,' Wright says. The 71/16in subsea system is being designed around a Cameron U-type BOP from 2003 and is expected to be able to carry out operations in water depths to 10,000ft and pressures to 10,000psi before the end of this year. Such a system will use existing choke and kill valves – one mechanical and the other hydraulically operated. It too will have accumulators for contingent and non contingent operations, Wright says. A 71/16in 15K Quad BOP is also on order for 1H 2012. ‘We work closely with the manufacturers of the trees because our system needs to override all their tree functions,' he adds.
Wright notes that the 71/16in system will require about 15,000ft of umbilical with fiber-optic and electrical capabilities for controlling the subsea system in 10,000ft of water. While the 3in system has been tested to 1350ft and could easily go to about 1800ft, ‘our client hasn't asked us to', Hernandez admits. The largest system will be intended for use in waters of 7000ft or more. This system will be different from the rigless/riserless BOP systems, Hernandez explains. ‘It's more than just a wireline valve.' He expects WWCS's 71/16in system to be ‘unique' and ‘robust.'
Wise makes sense in applications that need 100% P&A and need either slickline or eline work or extra barrier control during the intervention and P&A work, Hernandez says.
The lubricator and pressure control assembly (PCA) includes chemical injection capabilities, lubricator flushing ports, pressure control flushing port, chemical injection sub, grease injection capabilities, the pack-off assembly, a lubricator/PCA lifting clamp, a tool catcher, a tool trap and the ROV control panel. WWCS says the components can be deployed in a modular fashion to carry out well control operations independently of the BOP.
WWCS's equipment is built to take up minimal space, and the Wise equipment needed for 3in work will still leave room left over when set up on back of 210ft boat, Wright says. As Hernandez puts it: ‘We wanted to keep it a compact size – not because we want to make it smaller but because you can run an entire P&A spread off the back of a small boat.'
One way WWCS has managed to keep the footprint small is by adding a cantilever to Cal Dive's SDSV American Constitution, from which WWCS has carried out its operations. The cantilever provides additional room for the control panel for the control umbilicals as well as the long arm while also offering more room for maneuvering. In short, Hernandez says, it allows the company to do from a boat what would normally require a rig. The company said it credits involvement with the Iris (OE May 2010) system's surface spread and wireline execution as contributing factors in the consideration of a deck layout for future vessel P&As.
Part of what makes the Wise system work is Wright's Ultra Heave System, the company's heave compensation system. ‘Heave comp and the Wise system go hand-in-hand,' according to Wright, who says he didn't develop the WUHS for a specific job. Rather, he says: ‘Someone told me that if anyone ever figured out a way to do coiled tubing on a subsea well rigless, off a boat, they would be rich. So I'm testing that theory.' He first heard that about 20 years ago, he says, and inspiration struck, as it frequently does, ‘when I was going to sleep', about a year ago, and Parker is developing the WUHS for WWCS.
‘Most heave comp systems heave comp something else. This heave comps itself,' Wright says.
In short, the system works via a moonpool, has a 10ft upward and 10ft downward stroke for 20ft of total stroke, and has a 6inID and a 150,000lbs tension load, he says. The intention is to use the heave comp system to rig up on a boat and run a riser from a subsea well to surface before carrying out coiled tubing intervention work, through tubing activities, wireline/slickline work, abandon the well if it's sanded up, or perform acid work, all from a boat rather than a rig, he says. The design will create the equivalent of a heave-compensated floor, he says, and the coiled tubing could be placed there. ‘We'd essentially become like a rig at that point – because coiled tubing inside the riser is only moving three to four inches.'
Getting started
Wright, who has worked for Global Industries and Red Adair and helped restart Halliburton's P&A group, decided to strike out on his own in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the assurance of one independent that it would give him a year's worth of work if he started his own company and had the necessary kit and insurance. Since forming in 2006, WWCS has carried out operations for a number of companies, in the process growing from five employees to 75 and from one spread to six.
Wright also expanded internationally with this April's announcement of a strategic alliance with Malaysia-based IEV Group. Under this agreement, IEV will provide sales, marketing, project management and logistical support to WWCS throughout the Asia Pacific.
Wright has applied for six patents, including one for the Modular Subsea Kill System (MSKS) that the company will be unveiling in September. The system would feature a piece of kit that could generate electricity from the water without assistance from the surface. An accumulator on the seabed could be triggered from the surface to shut in the BOPs, with a crimping tool being optional, he explains. The plan calls for having 750 barrels of kill weight fluid on the seabed for injection at a moment's notice. Wright's patent application on the kill plan involves the power source, which ‘has been the stumper to date', he points out.
‘I never planned to get this big,' Wright says of a company that has invented and had built six proprietary tools. ‘But we came up with these inventions that nobody else had, and clients wanted us to do more, do more, do more . . . and here we are with 75 people,' he adds. ‘I'm excited about the direction of this company and where we're going.' And while he admits he may have been dragged ‘kicking and screaming' into deepwater activities, the company has developed some strong capabilities in that area. ‘We've been focusing on deepwater because not everybody can do a deepwater abandonment,' Wright says.
Operators come to WWCS with their problems. ‘The harder it is, the more we like it. I like to solve challenges. I like to build things,' he says. One example he cites is a 2009 job for ATP Oil & Gas at Canyon Express in 7200ft of water. ‘They had a pipeline that was hydrated up.' In short, hydrates had formed along 15 miles of ATP's 12in pipeline. Over 18 months, Wright says, WWCS developed the Hydrate Remediation Skid.
As Wright tells it, he was drifting off to sleep when the solution came to him – after previous attempts had damaged three pumps. His idea was an assembly that would use the motor and pump from different applications. The design uses filtered seawater for the pumps and can handle 2bbl/min. In operations to date, the hydrate pump has pulled line pressure down to –12psi and achieved a 1bbl/min rate.
‘We had people telling me it would never work. I don't know why it wouldn't work. It's a type of motor. They've been around for 50 years.'
Using the HRS, WWCS was able to remove 9000 barrels of water and hydrate slush from the affected 15 miles of ATP's 12in pipeline, he says. ‘It pumps everything,' he adds. ‘We deal with hydrates. That's what this pump was designed for.' OE
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