Journal of Petroleum Technology July 2012 : Page 48

DEEPWATER SPILL CONTROL DEVICES GO GLOBAL Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Editor This BP capping stack can be shipped in two pieces. The lower section, left, is a modified horizontal production tree with a choke and a hub and weighs 70 tons. The upper part, right, weights 37 tons and contains two 5⅛-in. gate valves able to shut in the well. he first thing a visitor sees at Trendsetter Engineering is a massive device standing ready if the worst happens on a well in the Gulf of Mexico. This amalgam of connectors, pipes, valves, and blowout preventers (BOPs) is a capping stack—a name that entered the language in 2010 when the first one was quickly assembled to shut off the flow of oil from the Macondo field. T The Helix Well Containment Group (HWCG), which has 25 member compa-nies, stores this early example of what has become a global trend. Industry organizations and operators now have more than 15 capping stacks in service and on order. Many of them have been built, or will be, at Trendsetter. On a day in early April, the engineering consulting and equipment maker was building a capping stack for Shell, which will be part of its Arctic drilling program. And they were planning to build another designed by Shell to fit into the narrow space beneath a tension-leg platform. When complete, that one will become the property of the Marine Well Containment Corp. (MWCC), serving 10 large operators in the Gulf of Mexico. By 48 JPT • JULY 2012

Deepwater Spill Control Devices Go Global

Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Editor

The first thing a visitor sees at Trendsetter Engineering is a massive device standing ready if the worst happens on a well in the Gulf of Mexico. This amalgam of connectors, pipes, valves, and blowout preventers (BOPs) is a capping stack—a name that entered the language in 2010 when the first one was quickly assembled to shut off the flow of oil from the Macondo field. The Helix Well Containment Group (HWCG), which has 25 member companies, stores this early example of what has become a global trend. Industry organizations and operators now have more than 15 capping stacks in service and on order. Many of them have been built, or will be, at Trendsetter. On a day in early April, the engineering consulting and equipment maker was building a capping stack for Shell, which will be part of its Arctic drilling program. And they were planning to build another designed by Shell to fit into the narrow space beneath a tension-leg platform. When complete, that one will become the property of the Marine Well Containment Corp. (MWCC), serving 10 large operators in the Gulf of Mexico. By year's end, MWCC will have three capping stacks and a growing inventory of related equipment, including two vessels to capture, process, and offload crude to tankers and flare natural gas. Another four capping stacks to be built by Trendsetter will be deployed to offshore oil basins around the globe by the Subsea Well Response Project (SWRP), a nine-member Norway-based industry group. BP recently added another capping stack in the Houston area that also has a global mission. The device, weighing more than 100 tons, can be broken down into two pieces and flown anywhere that BP is working offshore, said Geir Karlsen, BP Containment Response Team leader. A variety of factors are pushing a trend that started in the Gulf of Mexico after the Macondo disaster led regulators to require that operators seeking drilling permits demonstrate they can control a deep sea blowout. Two ventures, MWCC and HWCG, were created to cooperatively provide those services in the Gulf of Mexico. When Shell sought permits to drill offshore in Alaska, it faced a similar requirement and needed a capping stack there. In the North Sea, operators formed the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group (OSPRAG) with a stack built by Cameron designed for conditions there. International oil companies, such as Shell and BP, have internal standards for offshore operations requiring capping stacks be available around the world, which many countries are coming to expect. They responded with caps of their own and by being part of SWRP. "A number of other regulatory agencies globally are requesting that capping stacks are available, but not necessarily located in country," said Ken Dupal, Shell's well delivery manager for process safety implementation for deep water wells. "This has been the basis for the SWRP strategy to provide capping stacks in various regions." Eventually, the American Petroleum Institute is expect to add its guidance with a standard under development on capping stacks—API 17W. Capping stacks are the most obvious manifestation of something larger. The scale of these emergency response efforts becomes obvious when BP describes what it takes to mobilize its blowout response. Getting the capping stack where it is needed requires a fleet of the largest cargo planes-both the Antonov AN-124 and the Boeing 747. While the capping stack components require the AN-124—one of the world's largest cargo planes—moving everything needed requires seven large cargo jets, Karlsen said. The equipment list runs to about 250 items, many a product of lessons learned from Macondo. There are adapters and connectors allowing the capping stack to be used with different BOPs and riser connections, pipe-shearing equipment to clear away debris and cut a new connection point, and a chemical dispersant device to break up the crude into droplets. The money and work behind this response is being replicated elsewhere by offshore operators and service companies. "There are a lot of capping stacks out there. It has grown into an industry," said Karlsen. "There has been a lot of work on capping stacks, putting equipment in place in a short time and putting procedures in place." Before Capping Stacks It is a striking change from the days before the Macondo blowout in April 2010, when capping stacks were just an idea in old studies considering what it would take to shut down a wild well in deep water. The model was the hardware used to control blowouts on land. It needed to be able to clamp firmly onto a wild well and direct the flow up through a central channel that could be shut off, or through diverters—two to four tubes used to reduce the pressure of a high-pressure flow when shutting down a well—or on up a riser to a vessel on the surface. The working model for all capping stacks was the one built for BP to shut down the Macondo spill. The large team of advisors brought in to assist during that time included Mario Lugo, Trendsetter's president and chief executive officer. His more than 38 years of offshore experience included working with Boots Hansen of Boots and Coots and Wild Well Control. He was also involved in a joint industry project studying how to tame a deepwater blowout. The engineering consulting and manufacturing firm has emerged as a maker of capping stacks and related equipment in a market where it competes with Cameron, which made and maintains BP's mobile capping stack. After Macondo, offshore operators urgently needed to have capping stacks to meet the requirement set by US regulators. The tight deadline was a good fit for Trendsetter, whose business is providing quick solutions to difficult problems. Its first was the interim capping stack built for MWCC, which it made in a little less than 8 weeks on a 20×20-ft steel pad outside the company's one-story office building. While Trendsetter builds all kinds of offshore equipment—it recently filled an order for manifolds—the equipment seen on a visit to its 20,000-ft2 factory building in Houston could serve as an exhibit of deepwater well control hardware. On a stout steel platform next to the HWCG capping stack was a toolkit of connectors the size of a flat-bed trailer. It covers the many types of hardware needed to mate a capping stack with a BOP, a lower marine riser assembly, or whatever pipe is available after a blast. At the factory building was an accumulator rack with 32 pressurized bottles that can be placed a safe distance from a wellhead and can deliver backup hydraulic pressure via a hose. Trendsetter was building a version it had developed that could be controlled from the surface using acoustic communications. The Arctic capping stack for Shell was designed to work in extreme cold where the pack ice in the shallow water is a threat. The stack and its related equipment were designed to stand up inside holes dug into the mud on the ocean bottom, called cellars, to ensure the equipment on the bottom remains below the moving ice. That cap has since been finished and shipped. "The Arctic capping stack was assembled, tested, and disassembled in truckable sections at Trendsetter and sent to a shipyard in Portland, Oregon, where it was then reassembled and tested," said Lugo. Trendsetter's order book included the Shell-designed unit for tighter spaces—the footprint of the 9×9-ft device is about one-third the scale of the typical capping stack—and orders for the four units from SWRP, which can be shipped by air. Shell has also expanded its reach by stationing transportable capping stacks in Aberdeen and Singapore, said Dupal. The price of a capping stack and all the equipment required to use it is by no means cheap. But, with industry groups allowing many companies to split the tab, "in the grand scheme of costs on a well, they are small portion of it," said Dave Coatney, managing director of HWCG. HWCG has begun a plan process to consider designing an even higher capacity, higher pressure unit. Trendsetter is also considering what that would take. "We are looking at a 20,000-psi system. But some components need to be evolved," Lugo said. While these devices come in a variety of shapes, where possible, the designs and components have been used before. "Capping stacks are taking proven technology, and, from what I have seen, there is nothing innovative on them that might increase the risk of them not operating," Dupal said. Or, as Randy Smith, project director at Trendsetter, put it, "This has got to work." Planning To Move Mountains Mobility is a relative thing. Capping stacks travel at a stately pace so behind all the hardware are people who have spent years figuring out how to deploy them as quickly as possible. The trip of MWCC's interim capping stack from Trendsetter's northwest Houston facility to a warehouse near a dock on the Houston Ship Channel took more than 4 hours and was done in the early hours of the morning to avoid creating a traffic jam. Deploying a stack by air requires finding an airport with runways built to handle the largest aircraft as well as cranes stout enough to load the capping stack components on a truck, Karlsen said. To reduce the risk of delays in customs, BP has contacted officials in key spots in advance to review its plans and has a system to provide detailed documentation covering the contents of each of its cargo containers. Routes are planned on roads and bridges able to handle the extreme loads. When the capping stack arrives at the water's edge, heavy equipment is needed to reassemble it and load it on a construction vessel, one of many specialized boats needed to cap a well. The BP team that maintains the stack will travel with it and join the large emergency response team from the company, equipment experts from Cameron, and others. To coordinate the complex response, BP holds regular drills, as do others in this growing corner of the offshore business. This summer, the MWCC will demonstrate what it can do by sending the capping stack out into the Gulf of Mexico along with the vessels and equipment needed to remove debris and collect oil and lowering it by wire to the ocean bottom.The dress rehearsal was requested by the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). "We have tested MWCC and capping stacks repeatedly, but putting them through their paces in the deep waters of the Gulf will give us added confidence that they will be ready to go if needed," said James Watson, director of the BSEE. Capping Stacks Among the growing list of capping stacks are these owned by industry groups and operators. Most can work as deep as 10,000 ft. Marine Well Containment Corp. (MWCC) Interim capping stack • Rated to 15,000 psi • Based in Houston • One of the first to be built Narrow profile capping stack • Rated to 10,000 psi • Will be based in Houston when delivered in mid-2012 • Designed by Shell to work within the narrow spaces under a tension leg platform Final capping stack • Rated to 15,000 psi • Will be based in Houston when delivered in late 2012 • Designed to handle extreme conditions Helix Well Containment Group (HWCG) Houston capping stack • Rated to 15,000 psi • Stored at Trendsetter yard in Houston Ingleside capping stack • Rated to 10,000 psi • Located in Ingleside, Texas • Located shoreside for quick deployment in the Gulf of Mexico Shell Oil Arctic capping stack • Rated to 10,000 psi • Will be stationed in Alaska • Designed for extreme cold and shallow waters with ice hazards North Sea stack • Rated to 10,000 psi • Based in Aberdeen • One of two transportable stacks owned by Shell Asia capping stack • Rated to 15,000 psi • Based in Singapore • One of two transportable stacks owned by Shell BP Transportable capping stack • Rated up to 15,000 psi • Based in Houston • Requires two jumbo jets to transport West Africa capping stack • Rated to 15,000 psi • Based in Angola • Available for well control emergencies off west Africa Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group (OSPRAG) North Sea capping device • Rated to 15,000 psi • Located in Aberdeen • Its weight (44 t) is less than half that of the largest stacks Subsea Well Response Project (SWRP) Four transportable capping stacks • Two units rated to 10,000 psi and two units rated to 15,000 psi • Will be located in Brazil, Norway, Singapore, and South Africa • Will be the first global network of capping stacks

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