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Murphy Oil Malaysia Completes Rigless Intervention Campaign Using Welltec Services
Murphy Oil Malaysia recently completed a highly successful, rigless intervention campaign using Welltec services. Not only did the operation allow immediate production from a “lost” well, but it also saved the time and cost of a rig based sidetrack. The end result is expected to add 20 MMscf/d into the production portfolio.
In the first well, the drift run hung up at 945 ft MD when trying to perforate the well. Based on previous experience, the cause was suspected to be part of a cement wiper plug. This was pushed down to a nipple profile at 4,314 ft MD, leaving it still 1,690 ft above the perforation depth. After only minutes of milling, the Well Miller made it through the plug, which allowed the Well Tractor® to push it down to 6,398 ft MD, approximately 380 ft below the target perforation interval. Thereafter the well was perforated and put on production.
In the second well, a poor cement job had made the primary target zone inaccessible and left an obstruction inside the tubing. With pressing rig commitments there was insufficient time to fix the problem, leaving the well temporarily abandoned and a candidate for future sidetracking. Based on the success of the first well, the Well Tractor and Well Miller were used to push the obstruction from 400 ft to 2,132 ft MD , meeting the objective to prepare the well for sidetracking.
However, it was decided to attempt to push the obstruction as far as possible. Using the Well Tractor and Well Miller the well was cleared well beyond the sidetrack target depth to an eventual Hold Up Depth of 8,743 ft MD. Getting this far down the production string allowed access to two of the three reservoirs in this well, which could now be completed for production rather than scheduled for a sidetrack workover.
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Norway: Greenland Group to Supply PetroFlame for Island Innovator Rig
Grenland Group, a full-service engineering, procurement and construction company based in Norway, has been awarded a contract for two PetroFlame® burner booms for the semisubmersible drilling and intervention rig, Island Innovator.
Island Innovator is owned by Marine Accurate Well ASA (Maracc), and the rig is currently under completion at COSCO Shipyard in Qidong, China. Main shareholder of Maracc is the Island Offshore group.
“We are proud to be awarded this contract by Island Offshore, one of the leading providers of well intervention services. This contract proves once again our competitiveness in the global market”, says Erik Taule, EVP Solutions at Grenland Group.
“This taylor-made PetroFlame® system combines our extensive experience of design, fabrication and construction. The design will be done at our office in Sandefjord, and fabrication will be subcontracted to Jutal, China, and closely followed up by our Shanghai office“, says Jan-Erik Totland, Product Manager at Grenland Group.
The PetroFlame® burner booms supplied by Grenland Group is designed for permanent installation on vessels or mobile offshore drilling units, and for the purpose of well testing. The PetroFlame® keeps the gas flare and burner head in safe distance from the vessel structures to achieve low level of heat radiation.
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USA: Cal Dive Secures Well Intervention Contract for Uncle John Vessel
Cal Dive International’s multiservice vessel Uncle John is currently undergoing an upgrade to the vessel’s dynamic positioning and derrick systems, which will enable the vessel to perform light well intervention work in water depths up to 3,500 feet.
Uncle John is DNV Classified multipurpose vessel with, 16-man Comex dive system with hyperbaric lifeboat capable of carrying 16 divers and 3 crews.
The upgrade is part of the Company’s original capital expenditure budget for 2011. Completion of this upgrade is anticipated during the middle of the first quarter of 2012. Following this upgrade and upon completion of 45 days of work for a major oil and gas operator, the Uncle John will commence a P&A Support Contract for two deepwater wells for Apache Corporation . This awarded work is expected to keep the Uncle John utilized late into the second quarter of 2012.
Quinn Hébert, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cal Dive, stated, “We are pleased to announce the upgrade of the Uncle John and the award of our first light well intervention contract by Apache utilizing the vessel’s upgraded capability. We are excited about the opportunities available to Cal Dive in entering this new market segment where we have received significant interest from our customers. This will allow Cal Dive to further diversify our market reach beyond our traditional diving and integrated construction services.”
Cal Dive International, Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a marine contractor that provides an integrated offshore construction solution to its customers, including manned diving, pipelay and pipe burial, platform installation and platform salvage services to the offshore oil and natural gas industry worldwide with a fleet of 29 vessels, including 19 surface and saturation diving support vessels and 10 construction barges.
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Expro Wins Wireline Contract in Brazil
Leading international oilfield service company Expro announced today its Latin America team has been awarded a new multi-million dollar wireline contract with Petrobras in Brazil.
As part of the four-year contract, Expro will provide 20 packages of slickline equipment and personnel to operate them. The initial contract term has the potential to significantly increase the number of slickline packages provided. There are options to allow up to four years of contract extensions.
This award will make Expro the largest slickline provider in Brazil.
This contract enhances the specialist well testing, subsea and Drill Stem Testing services the company already delivers to Petrobras and will give a platform for subsequent wireline intervention growth in the region, including the opportunity to introduce cased hole products to Petrobras and elsewhere in the country.
Sergio Zubelli, Expro’s Latin America region director, said: “This contract has elevated Expro’s status and we will be the biggest slickline provider in Brazil. This achievement is due to the hard work of our local teams and the support from Expro’s global wireline intervention product line team. This contract will also allow us further opportunities for our complete portfolio of intervention tools.”
Mark Illingworth, Expro’s wireline intervention director, said: “An award of this magnitude further cements Expro’s reputation as a global market leader in wireline intervention. We are an established provider of wireline services with over 40 years’ experience working for some of the biggest operators in the world.
“These types of awards are only gained through a clear focus on the product line, a clear understanding of what our customer wants, and by utilising the vast experience our people have in wireline intervention operations. We look forward to delivering for Petrobras through this project and beyond.”
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Norway-based Aker Solutions Increases its Middle East Presence with X3M Acquisition
Aker Solutions has signed an agreement to acquire the well intervention technology business from X3M (pronounced “Extreme”) International. The acquisition will grow Aker Solutions’ well intervention technology and service portfolio worldwide as well as increase the company’s presence in the important Middle East market.
X3M is an international niche provider of down-hole intervention service tools and technology products. Its core products are innovative down-hole tools like plugs, packers, hangers, valves and a complete range of setting and recovery tools.
Well intervention services are operations carried out in an oil or gas well, with the objective of maximising production and increasing the recovery rate of oil and gas.
“Today we are buying plug products and hiring the plug-setting services from third parties. Through this acquisition we will expand our product portfolio and be able to offer our customers a more complete – and thereby more competitive – service offering,” says Wolfgang Puennel, head of well intervention services in Aker Solutions.
X3M has a solid portfolio of proprietary technologies. The plugs and packers for HPHT (high pressure-high temperature) and sour gas, have a potential to capture a significant market share in the coming years. The tools have been used successfully in gas wells with extremely high concentrations of H2S and CO2. X3M is also developing a new metal to metal seal technology that could prove to be a future industry game-changer in certain areas.
“We are acquiring an exciting product portfolio. However, we are planning to invest to rapidly expand and further improve on our technology position within this segment,” says Puennel.
X3M is well established in the Middle East, with operations in Oman Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Aker Solutions already has well service set-ups in Saudi-Arabia and Oman, which will merge its operations with X3M’s. X3M also has a design engineering team based in Narvik, Norway. The research and development (R&D) set-up in Narvik will not only support X3M’s activities but also strengthen Aker Solutions’ existing R&D function within wireline tractors and application tools.
“Today Aker Solutions is a major provider of well intervention services in the British and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. However, we have the potential to grow our business significantly by introducing X3M’s plug products to our service portfolio in the North Sea. Equally, we will seek to capitalise on X3M’s position in the Middle East to gain a stronger foothold there. All in all this acquisition offers a complementary technological and geographical footprint,” says Puennel.
Aker Solutions is acquiring the well intervention technology business from X3M International, whose main owners are the Middle East-based Catalyst Private Equity Fund and X3M’s original founders. Transaction value is approximately USD 8 million. X3M had operating revenues of USD 6 million in 2010. The transaction is expected to be completed early November 2011.
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Baker Hughes: CS-AP Gravel Pack System (video)
The CS-AP™ is a cake saver — acid placement gravel pack system.
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Statoil: Riserless light well intervention
– a tool for improved recovery.
The successful qualification of a second generation, riserless wireline intervention system gives Statoil a viable alternative for gaining quick and easy access to subsea wells.
Occasionally wells have to be re-entered for maintenance and technical purposes (e.g. replacing and re-perforating tubing; replacing flow control devices; isolating production zones; monitoring production behavior; and logging pressure, flow and temperature).
The procedure, which is known as well intervention, is difficult enough to do from conventional surface platforms let alone when wells are installed on the seafloor.
The normal subsea procedure is carried out from an anchored semi-submersible rig attached to the wells by risers (gas/fluid conduits linking subsea equipment to surface platforms).
Statoil, however, has already gained some experience of using a first generation riserless system, where the intervention equipment is lowered by means of a wire line paid out from a dynamically positioned monohull vessel.
As the operating conditions are somewhat limited, it was decided to test Prosafe Offshore’s latest Multi Service Vessel (MSV) Regalia system with its 7″ riserless subsea wireline lubricator co-developed with FMC Kongsberg Subsea.
During late 2003, the company entered an all-inclusive contract with Prosafe to supply the services, equipment and procedures necessary to perform selected subsea well interventions at the Statfjord North, Visund and Åsgard fields.
Statoil was responsible for planning the individual downhole programs, which involved a variety of light intervention tasks in water depths up to 390 meters.
Deemed a great success, the company now has the option to use this relatively inexpensive, second generation technology to gain quick and easy access to its subsea wells.
Furthermore, preliminary results from the operation suggest that intervention costs may be cut by as much as one third when compared with anchored rig and riser systems.
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