Subsea Decommissioning Lessons Learned Whitepaper launched

Offshore Network has teamed up with UniversalPegasus International to bring you a whitepaper on their innovative use of ROV technology to overcome the challenge of collecting information for mature subsea wells during subsea decommissioning projects.

While the North Sea decommissioning market is thriving and major break throughs have been achieved in the past year in terms of increasing the efficiencies of platform abandonment campaigns, this compelling case study from the Gulf of Mexico will give answers to many of the most significant challenges that remain for NS operators who have overlooked their subsea liability. The whitepaper includes:

• An analysis of a recent project involving the decommissioning of several deepwater subsea rigid jumpers, flying leads, and other subsea equipment using novel ROV applications
• A review of challenges associated with the depletion of original equipment knowledge and solutions to handle outdated equipment and methodology for deepwater projects
• A study of how innovative improvements to ROV functionality and tooling before offshore execution led to cost savings by enabling synchronisation with P&A operations

With decommissioning forecasts ranging in the billions globally and opportunities aplenty, this whitepaper will also help service companies understand how out of the box thinking and unconventional approaches must be found to help North Sea operators tackle a number of challenges ranging from harsh and unpredictable weather conditions to high costs and a lack of expertise, as well as address major technological gaps.

Levels of activity speak for themselves:

• CNR successfully completed a large platform abandonment campaign in 2016 on over 30 wells at the Murchison field and have started planning for over 20 more
• ConocoPhillips similarly undertook a historic plugging operation on the Ekofisk 2/4 A platform using the Rowan Gorilla VI drilling rig in Norway while it had previously worked with Ensco in 2015 to plug and abandon 18 wells on six platforms in the Southern North Sea
• Proserv abandoned 3 wells for Talisman in a water depth of 150-170m in 2015 and worked on 8 wells for Maersk in 119m of water in early 2016
• Petrofac also secured a P&A project for Tullow Oil on the Horne and Wren platform in the Southern North Sea
• Claxton was awarded work by Statoil for the rigless recovery of seven abandoned wells on the Huldra platform, in the Norwegian Continental Shelf

The North Sea decommissioning market is thus thriving and if you wish to find out more about UniversalPegasus International’s innovative use of ROV technology and how such innovations could be applied in the North Sea.