Interest builds in joint subsea decom project

A new joint industry project (JIP) which aims to solve some of the thorniest issues in decommissioning subsea wells has already attracted interest from six major industry players.

Credit Darryl Peroni

The JIP will assess the use of different vessel types, probe how to give vessels Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit capabilities more cheaply, and examine resins as replacements for cement in well plugging and abandonment (P&A). The project will examine nine issues in total.

Spearheaded by Houston-based consultant Endeavor Management, the proposed JIP will also evaluate how to improve flushing subsea infrastructure, ways of cutting through multiple casing strings and downhole control lines, and how to deal with well contaminants such as mercury, arsenic and naturally occurring radioactive materials, or NORM.

Endeavor’s executive vice president Bruce Crager told DecomWorld that six major industry players have so far expressed an interest in joining the JIP.

Endeavor, which will coordinate the research and dissemination, wants at least 10 partners. Joining costs a company $59,000.

One senior completions advisor at a major operator told DecomWorld that the JIP’s value was “compelling” and that the undertaking was more than any one company could achieve on its own.

Nine tasks

The idea for the JIP came after Endeavor conducted an in-depth study on decommissioning for Brazil’s Petrobras. The study involved a review of global regulations, a survey logging issues and best practice around the world, and a benchmarking exercise among Petrobras and five other operators.

“We came up with a number of areas the industry is still trying to deal with, as in, we have ways to do it but they’re not very efficient or consistent, or there are better ways being promoted but they’re not well known, so we took nine of those and made them the focus of the JIP,” said Endeavor’s Bruce Crager.

“There are many issues but we took the ones we thought were of significant concern to the operators, and those we thought we could deal with.”

The JIP’s nine tasks are to:

- Develop an economic model to predict costs using three basic vessel types (Riserless Light Well Intervention, Workover Vessel with small bore riser, and MODU).
- Achieve MODU capabilities for subsea well P&A at a lower price.

- Examine resins as a replacement for cements in well P&A.

- Evaluate ways to improve methods and equipment to flush subsea infrastructure during decommissioning.

- Identify industry capabilities to perform Cement Bond Logging beyond the first casing string.

- Evaluate cutting through multiple casing strings and downhole control lines for P&A activities.

- Identify ways to sense conditions in outer annuli of existing subsea wells.

- Improve the design of OEM Equipment and Subsea Systems for more effective P&A in the future.

- Identify ways to measure and deal with well contaminants such as Mercury, Arsenic and NORM.

Each of the topic areas will be led by an industry expert. The topic of gaining access to subsea wells’ outer annuli, for instance, will be led by Bob Helmkamp, who has over 30 years’ experience in the E&P business and was formerly Shell’s global discipline leader for subsea engineering.

High yield

Crager is confident companies will join the JIP because the low oil price combined with the advancing age of the global subsea asset base are focussing minds on the need to decommission more cheaply and effectively.

“We as an industry aren’t very good at taking things out,” he said. “That’s not what we work towards. We work towards getting wells in and keeping them in production. Getting them out is just a hassle, and budgets are low. But because of the low cost of oil I think there is a genuine interest in collaboration that wasn’t there two years ago.”

Crager admits that the joining fee of $59,000 may seem expensive but says that participating fully in the JIP would yield a store of information worth ten times that.

“I think companies are now saying, look, for fifty-nine thousand dollars, if I can get nearly six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of information, I’m in for that because I don’t have six hundred thousand to study all this myself,” he said.

“Compelling”

One senior completions advisor at a major operator said his company was looking “very closely” at joining the new JIP.

Speaking on condition of anonymity he told DecomWorld that the value proposition was “compelling”, and echoed Crager’s view that the undertaking represented more than any one company could achieve on its own.

“Personally I think Endeavor’s proposal is good value for money based on the way it’s been advertised. In particular, the economic modelling for use of different vessel assets in a variety of settings is very interesting and ought to have a long shelf life,” he said.

“It’s hard to justify this kind of thing in this environment when discretionary spending is being removed from budget, but I think that if enough subscribers can be assembled the proposal is very attractive.”

The advisor praised what he said appeared to be a non-biased approach to evaluating the full chain of subsea well decommissioning.

“I think there’s an opportunity here in terms of having a clearing house for information and allowing campaigns for decommissioning to evolve,” he said.

“The proposal strikes me as something that would be challenging for any single operator to justify undertaking on their own, making the JIP approach compelling.”

More information on the proposed JIP is available here: www.endeavormgmt.com/decommissioning-team