Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – Robert Gordon University (RGU) has unveiled a new decommissioning simulator and associated software, which it claims are a world-first.
The facilities will be made available to supportdecommissioning projects in the UK offshore industry and elsewhere.
RGU created the simulator in collaboration with funding partnersThe Oil and Gas Technology Centre, KCA Deutag and Drilling Systems, with technical support from Baker Hughes, a GE company, with a focus on well plugging and abandonment (P&A).
According to the university, P&A activity across UK waters could cost more than £8 billion ($10.7 billion) over the next decade, with around 2,500 wells expected to be decommissioned across the UK, Danish, Dutch, and Norwegian continental shelves.
The simulator is said to support operators and service companies with planning and preparation for well P&A, and RGU claims it could enhance safety, improve efficiency, and reduce the cost associated with decommissioning oil and gas wells.
In addition, the university, leveraging its partnership with The Oil & Gas Technology, will seek to create new opportunities to develop and test technologies, in collaboration with the industry and technology providers.
Professor Paul de Leeuw, Director of RGU’s Oil and Gas Institute, said: “Operators and drilling contractors will be able to use the simulator to develop the technical and non-technical skills and capabilities of their rig crews for decommissioning wells, while improving team performance.”
Students will also benefit from training and development on the simulator.
Clive Battisby, COO of Drilling Systems, added: “Working once again with RGU, the new decommissioning simulator shows how our close collaborative partnership and expertise really works to create truly custom cutting edge real-time training simulations and systems.
“In this case using the physical tool data and CAD drawings taken from customer’s real-world downhole tools, has been added into the simulation to create a package of decommissioning tools to allow knowledge and skills to be learnt in a safe learning and very realistic environment.”
12/07/2017
