Gene Kliewer • Houston
Field development awards
There have been a number of subsea system and equipment awards recently. These include the following:
Venezuela -- Cameron has a $190-million contract to provide subsea equipment and services to Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the national oil company of Venezuela.
There are three packages within the contract, and Cameron is to supply a total of 10 subsea christmas trees, wellheads, associated production controls, in-field jumpers, and flowline connections. The materials are for the Dragón and Patao gas development projects. These are part of PDVSA’s Mariscal Sucre Project.
Delivery is scheduled to begin this quarter and continue through 2009.
Gulf of Mexico -- Petrobras America has awarded Technip contracts totaling more than $300 million for subsea equipment and engineering for Cascade and Chinook gas fields in Walker Ridge area waters of 8,200 ft (2,499 m) and 8,800 ft (2,682 m) depth, respectively.
Technip is to engineer, procure, construct, and install five free-standing hybrid risers and install the Cascade in-field flowlines and gas export pipeline.
Installation is scheduled for 3Q 2009 using Technip’sDeep Blue and Constructor.
India -- Reports from India indicate that ONGC has awarded a $685-million contract to Ramunia Holdings for engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning at B-193 field off Mumbai, India, in the Heera-Panna-Basseim block.
The contract is said to cover a process platform, unmanned wellhead platforms, and a total of 114 km (71 mi) of 8-in. (20-cm) and 16-in. (40.5-cm) pipelines. The work includes modifying the existing BPB platform and a tie-in to the ICP-Heera trunkline.
Spain -- In a first for both companies, Repsol YPF has awarded Aker Kværner a contract to supply a subsea production system to the Montanzo and Lubina projects off eastern Spain.
The work includes engineering, procurement, and construction of two subsea trees with control systems, connections, and overtrawlable structures.
The project will be managed out of Oslo, Norway. Subsea trees will be manufactured at Tranby, Norway, and control systems in Aberdeen, UK. The equipment is scheduled to be delivered in 1Q 2009.
Brazil -- Petrobras again has awarded a contract to FMC Technologies Inc. for deepwater subsea trees and tie-ins. This $67-million project is for 11 add-on wells at Roncador Module 3 field offshore Brazil. FMC will supply trees, PLETs, and rigid jumpers for each well from its Rio de Janeiro facility starting in 2009.
“With this order, Petrobras has now awarded approximately 300 subsea trees to our Brazilian operation,” notes John Gremp, executive VP of FMC Technologies.
RLWI systems delivered
Two riser light well intervention (RLWI) systems were delivered by Bennex to FMC Kongsberg Subsea for use in maintaining subsea wells without riser/vessel support. The first system is scheduled for delivery to theWellserver in March/April 2008 and the second system to the Constructor in April/May 2008.
The umbilical termination head systems will be assembled, leak tested, and filled with oil in Drammen. Bennex also is to deliver electronic pottles and jumpers for the project.
AK agrees with Shell
Aker Kværner also has signed a five-year agreement with Shell UK Ltd. and A/S Norske Shell for provision, installation, commissioning, and life-of-field support for North Sea subsea control systems. Five optional one-year extensions may be exercised, too.
Field work
Australia -- Woodside Petroleum Ltd. has contracted Acergy SA for $150 million for offshore installation work at the Pluto LNG facility off Karratha, Western Australia. The contract covers installation of subsea manifolds, valve structures, umbilicals, an MEG injection line, pipeline stabilization, and flowline tie-in in water depth to 850 m (2,789 ft).
Engineering began last year, and installation by theToisa Proteus is scheduled in the second half of next year.
Canada -- Acergy also got a $195-million contract from EnCana Corp. for offshore SURF work at Deep Panuke field off Nova Scotia. Acergy is to install, bury, and tie-in some 17 km (11 mi) of 8-in. (20-cm) in-field flowlines and umbilicals to four production wells and an acid gas disposal line connecting to an FPU.
Starting installation in 2Q 2010, Acergy expects to use theFalcon and the Discovery.
First acoustic corer on order
OceanWorks has contracted PanGeo Subsea Inc. to design and build the first acoustic corer. The device is to produce high-resolution sub-seabed images of geohazards. To accomplish this, the tool will require sonar heads to be accurately scanned over the seabed to produce a dense grid 12 m (39 ft) in diameter.
OceanWorks is designing the tool to work in up to 600 m (1,969 ft) water depths from a standard offshore support vessel. An electro-optical umbilical will link the tool to the vessel.
VetcoGray introduces high capacity wellhead system
VetcoGray’s new MS-800 subsea wellhead offers increased casing load and higher pressure capacities, the company says. Targeted at deepwater drilling, the unit can hold an 8 million lb (3.6 million kg) load at the wellhead including 2 million lb (0.9 million kg) for the first position casing hanger and the 16-in. (40.6 cm) casing hanger. The pressure capacity for the 16-in. hanger goes to 10,000 psi (0.5 MPa).
“We have developed this product in response to the growing industry need for technology to exploit subsea oil and gas fields at depths of 30,000 ft (9,144 m) or more,” says Gary Shaw, technology leader.
A 15 ksi (103 MPa) version is expected in 2Q 2008 with a 20 ksi (138 MPa) version coming later in the year.
UK opens first-of-kind Website
Oil & Gas UK’s Step Change in Safety has launched a Website to help companies improve asset integrity of offshore installations. The site is designed to share good practices, improve learning, and enhance communication within companies and across the industry.
“Obviously individual companies are working hard and investing significantly to maintain the integrity of their own installations for the longer futures which now lie ahead of them,” says Chris Allen HSSEE director with Oil & Gas UK. “The role of Step Change is to ensure that lessons learnt and good practices developed are widely shared so that the overall industry effort is as effective as it possibly can be.”
“A big attraction of the new Website is that an interested individual can access full details of a best practice example or a lesson learnt from anywhere in industry almost immediately,” says John Forrest who heads the Step Change in Safety’s Asset Integrity Work Group. “This means that the new idea can be very quickly translated into an improved work practice.”
The site URL ishttp://stepchangeinsafety.net/stepchange/resources_asset.aspx.
