Shell tells drilling foes to look at Perdido
The recent initiation of production from the high-profile Perdido development in a world record 8,000 ft (2,438 m) of water in the Gulf of Mexico’s Alaminos Canyon should serve as the poster project for companies trying to convince the US to expedite its plan to open the long-closed East Coast for exploration, says operator Shell Exploration & Production.
Calling it “a new era for deepwater innovation,” Marvin Odum, Upstream Americas director for Shell Energy Resources Co., says “Perdido demonstrates what companies like Shell can do when US federal lands and waters are opened to responsible energy exploration and production.”
In effectively opening up the Lower Tertiary play in the Western GoM, the record-setting Perdido unveiled myriad technical milestones to begin production that is expected to reach 100,000 b/d of oil and 200 MMcf/d of gas from 35 wells. The host spar will produce the Great White, Silvertip, and Tobago fields – the latter located in more than 9,600 ft (2,900 m) of water, surpassing the world depth record for a completed subsea well. Perdido, owned jointly by Shell (35%), Chevron (37.5%), and BP (27.5%), shattered the previous world water depth record for an offshore platform.
Shell has said that Perdido “pushed the boundaries” for technology, including a specially engineered subsea separation and boosting system to enhance recovery by removing about 2,000 psi of back pressure from the wells. During a press conference at the 2009 Offshore Technology Conference, Dale Snyder, Perdido project manager, said the development would produce from 22 wet trees with six risers.
“The development is in the far southwest portion of the Gulf of Mexico, which is really unique to the industry,” he said at that time. “Perdido is in a different geological setting than has previously produced in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Odum agrees, saying “Perdido presented technical challenges unlike we’ve ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell’s team used its expertise to open this new frontier and confront complex reservoir characteristics, extreme marine conditions, and record water depth pressures.”
Perdido came on stream just as the industry is urging the US government to move forward with its earlier announced intention to conduct environmental assessments that could clear the way for seismic and lease offerings along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the north coast of Alaska. No seismic has not been shot in the closed areas for more than two decades. Shell says the fact Perdido was brought online safely and without any environmental incidents, even though it was developed in a relatively virgin area and required specially engineered technologies, should serve to quash many of the concerns of opponents of drilling off the East Coast. It also points to the nearly 12,000 Shell employees and contractors who comprised the workforce during the construction and installation of the project.
“This is a new frontier in many respects,” says Odum. “Perdido’s floating production facility can be expanded to serve the future potential in the area, and we can apply the technology and expertise utilized at Perdido to other similarly challenging environments in the future.”
ExxonMobil credits FDP with helping set new ERD record
Exxon Mobil Corp. credits its exclusive Fast Drill Process (FDP) with helping it establish another in what seems like a yearly string of world extended reach drilling (ERD) records.
In California, the operator broke its own ERD world record when it drilled a well more than 31,680 ft (9,656 m) horizontally from the Heritage platform. The well, drilled to more than 7,000 ft (2,134 m) TD, established a world record for the longest ERD well from a fixed platform.
ExxonMobil says the FDP technology it developed essentially is an optimization process that consistently has reduced by up to 35% the time required to drill wells. The operator says FDP uses real-time computer analysis of the drilling system’s energy consumption. This analysis, in turn, helps improve the management of the factors that determine drilling rate, such as weight on bit, rotary speed, and torque, resulting in, what ExxonMobil says, is up to an 80% improvement in drilling rates.
“These new tools and lessons learned from our recent work off Russia’s Sakhalin Island have been key in helping us reach these resources safely and efficiently,” says ExxonMobil US Production Manager Kok-Yew See.
He was referring to the operator’s previous world ERD record at the Sakhalin-1 project in the Chayvo field off Russia’s eastern coast. That well broke the company’s previous world ERD record, also established off the Sakhalin Islands.
The Heritage platform is in the ExxonMobil Santa Ynez Unit that also comprises the Hondo, Harmony, and Heritage platforms, which produce oil and gas from the Hondo, Pescado, and Sacate fields. Since 1981, the Santa Ynez Unit has produced more than 450 MMbbl of oil.
Fully automated tank cleaning unveiled in Ghana
M-I SWACO says it recently debuted its fully automated Automatic Tank Cleaning technology in Ghana where it was used to clean the 450 bbl oil-base drilling fluid tanks on the 240-ft (73-m) M/VPacific Askari supply vessel. The company previously has used a semi-automatic version to clean rig pits on a number of offshore rigs in Ghana, but have now also successfully used the ATC Unit to clean tanks on the Sedco 702 and Deepwater Pathfinder drillship with the Sedco 702 being cleaned with zero man entry into the tanks.
The fully automated system employs programmed tank cleaning machines to not only clean rig and boat tanks, but also to recover and reuse significant volumes of base oil and barite. The company says the technology also reduces considerably the HSE risks associated with manual tank cleaning and has been shown to reduce generated waste as much as 90%.
In addition, M-I SWACO says the technology is ideal for deepwater as it can clean pits and tanks in hours as opposed to the days required when they are cleaned manually. This is a particularly critical consideration when preparing for displacement with another fluid system..
