Posted on 05/06/2014 5:38:26 AM PDT by thackney
The energy industry has deployed technology in four strategic sites worldwide that’s designed to stop the most devastating offshore blowouts.
“Hopefully we’ll never have to use it,” said Andrzej Kaczmarski of the Subsea Well Response Project, a non-profit joint initiative of the companies. But, he added, “we’ll be ready if anything … is needed.”
Kaczmarski spoke about the project, launched in 2011, during the Offshore Technology Conference at NRG Park in Houston on Monday. The project was the result of a recommendation by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers on the heels of the Deepwater Horizon offshore blowout in 2010.
The focus is on developing and figuring out deployment procedures for high-tech devices known as capping stacks that can help stop a blowout when standard interventions won’t do the job.
In March 2013, the group dropped off its first capping stack in Norway. The next one came to Singapore in June 2013. It opened the third storage facility in South Africa in October, and in March, it opened the fourth and final one in Brazil. The equipment is expected to be ready for use by the end of 2014.
The idea, Kaczmarski said, is to use the devices when typical well capping is impossible and “when all contingency plans fail.”
Kaczamarski said those four locations were chosen to minimize response time if the devices are ever needed, regardless of where in the world a blowout might happen. They can be transported by ship or by plane.
“Hopefully (we ) will never need to send it offshore to an incident,” Kaczmarski said.
According to project officials, the capping stacks should be adequate to stop most subsea wells at depths of 9,800-feet. The idea is they would be deployed in concert with a “toolkit” that includes other hardware needed to create a containment system that can bring flowing oil and gas from a wellhead to the surface in a way that can be contained if the spill can’t be otherwise stopped.
Shell operates the joint venture, which is based in Stavanger, Norway and is overseen by a committee comprised of representatives of each participating company.
Subsea Well Response Project
http://subseawellresponse.com/
The Subsea Well Response Project (SWRP) is a non-profit joint initiative between several major oil and gas companies working together to enhance the industry’s capacity to respond to subsea well-control incidents.
In 2013, SWRP delivered advanced capping and dispersant equipment for use by the international oil and gas industry, marking the achievement of its four core objectives:
SWRP designed and developed a capping toolbox with a range of equipment to allow wells to be shut in
SWRP designed and developed subsea incident response toolkit for the subsea injection of dispersant
SWRP collaborated with Oil Spill Response Ltd on an international deployment mechanism so that the equipment is now available to the wider industry
SWRP completed studies to determine the feasibility of global containment systems
With the backing of BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Petrobras, Shell, Statoil and Total, SWRP is now developing a global containment toolkit that can support subsea well incident response if well shut-in is not immediately possible. When used in conjunction with standard available hardware, this equipment is designed to bring leaking oil from a subsea wellhead in a controlled way to the surface for storage and disposal.
SWRP was established in 2011 on the recommendation of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP). In light of recent serious oil spill incidents, such as Macondo, in the Gulf of Mexico, OGP created a dedicated Global Industry Response Group, which examined how the oil industry could possibly further improve the prevention of, and response to, subsea well-control incidents. SWRP is one part of a wider industry effort that is taking forward these recommendations.
Shell is the operator of the Project, overseen by an Operating Committee, comprising of one representative from each participating company. The Project operates out of Shell Headquarters in Stavanger, Norway.
The original design for the cap they tried using in the blowout would have worked but between the the govt and the engineers the design was changed.
The original design came from ideas of dozens of peoples throughout the oil industry with years of experience but no college degrees, which automatically makes smarter than everyone else on the face of the planet.
The basic design was put together in less than 24 hours after the blowout.
A buddy of mine called me and asked me for ideas but anything I suggested had already been thought of.
The original design was supposed to have water jets to cut into the sand and have the bell sink down into the sand then inject cement to form a seal.
It would be lowered in place by casing and there would be tubing inside the casing to pump the water then cement.
Once the cap was cemented in place hot oil would be pumped through the tubing to keep the oil from the well flowing to the surface.
Thanks for that
Those guys not only had it designed they had all the parts located to build it probably in less than 2 weeks.
The govt didn’t want to use the design because it might not seal 100% and some of the hot oil pumped down would have been pumped into the Gulf until everything was warm enough to shut the valves and get the oil flowing to the surface.
We should never ask the people with hands on experience how to do something cost efficiently when we have a tax system that can cripple any industry if they do not succumb to government suggestions.
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