SPECIAL REPORT: OTC Spotlight on Technology recognizes 14 technologies
The Offshore Technology Conference of 2008 recognized 14 diverse technologies in its Spotlight on New Technology Awards. The award program, which began in 2004, highlights new technologies in offshore drilling and production.
This year OTC recognized:
- ABB AS for its wireless vibration sensor.
- Baker Hughes Inc.-Baker Oil Tools for its RAM rotatable, self-aligning, multilateral system.
- Baker Hughes-INTEQ for the MagTrak logging-while-drilling (LWD) tool.
- Cubility AS for its MudCube drilling fluid-cleaning system.
- Delmar Systems Inc. for the OMNI-Max anchor for deepwater mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) mooring.
- Expro International Group PLC for the ViewMax sideview camera.
- FMC Technologies Inc. for its enhanced vertical deepwater tree (EVDT).
- Schlumberger Ltd. for FUTUR active-set cement technology.
- Schlumberger for ResInject injection control device.
- Versabar Inc. for the “Bottom Feeder” heavy-lift system.
- Weatherford International Ltd. for its MetalSkin monobore openhole liner system.
- Weatherford for the motorized cutting tool (MCT).
- Welltec AS for the Well Miller reverse circulating bit.
- Yantai Raffles Shipyard Ltd. for the Taisun 20,000-tonne gantry crane.
To be considered, each technology had to be less than 2 years old, be proven through full-scale application or successful prototype testing, have broad interest and appeal, and provide significant benefits beyond existing technologies.
AC motor monitoring
ABB received an award for its microelectromechanical system (MEMS) accelerometer for wireless vibration measurements on AC motors.
The wireless vibration sensor is a small, autonomous sensor mounted on a motor close to a bearing. The unit has a vibration sensor (accelerometer), a temperature sensor, and provides wireless communication to a central computer for data analysis and storage.
Baker Hughes Inc.-Baker Oil Tools’ RAM system was among 14 technologies that received recognition at the OTC Spotlight on Technology. Photo from Baker Oil Tools.
The prototype sensor is cylindrical with a diameter of less than 1.5 in. and a height of less than 4 in. ABB says the frequency response is ideal for early detection of bearing failures. The sensor uses the Wireless HART standard for transferring data.
ABB developed the sensor prototype together with SKF and SINTEF under a program sponsored by the Research Council of Norway.
Deepwater tree
FMC Technologies was recognized for its EVDT, which is a slimbore, vertical subsea completion system. The EVDT accommodates 7-in. tubing completions in a 135⁄8-in. BOP stack, and is tested to 15,000 psi. It can be installed in ultradeep water using a small rig.
The EVDT system includes an ROV tree cap, subsea tree, retrievable flow module and flow meter, and tubing hangar. The tubing hangar can be installed with or without a tubing head.
Shell has adopted the EVDT as its global standard (OGJ, May 5, 2008, p. 53).
Liners, multilaterals
Two awards went to liners and multilaterals.
Baker Oil Tools was recognized for its RAM system, the first and only system that allows continuous rotation of a lateral liner while landing a completion system.
The RAM system is based on the HOOK hangar platform and can deliver multilateral junctions for Level 3 and Level 5 completions. The RAM system can support, control, and access all lateral junctions joining cased and cemented main bores with screened or lined openhole laterals.
Baker developed and tested the system with an IOC and first installed it on Alaska’s North Slope in 2007.
Weatherford received an award for the MetalSkin liner that allows the drilling of larger boreholes.
Setting the liner requires the running of an oversized shoe with the 133⁄8-in. casing string. After the next hole section is drilled, the completion involves running the expandable liner and expanding it back into the oversized shoe. This provides an expanded casing string with the same drift as the 133⁄8-in. casing; thereby, adding casing without losing hole size.
The design provides a full bore in the overlap between the monobore openhole liner and the 133⁄8-in. casing string.
Drilling tools, fluids
Three awards went to drilling tools and fluids.
Welltec was recognized for its Well Miller bit, characterized as a “tunnel power drill” used to mill out hard materials, retrieve them to surface, in order to reestablish flow in well bores using E-line intervention without need for a rig.
The bit works in conjunction with the Well Tractor, which provides WOB and controls the reactive torque. The tool includes a basic rotational unit (pressure compensator, electric motor), which drives an impeller that creates a vacuum flow that drags sand into intake holes, tapping it in sand trap bailers. Different numbers of bailer sections can be mounted, depending on the tool configuration.
INTEQ was recognized for its MagTrak LWD tool, which does not require a radioactive source.
MagTrak provides magnetic resonance data to determine formation porosity (independent of lithology), bound and free fluid volumes, permeability, hydrocarbon detection, and T1-T2 distribution spectrums (T2 in real-time).
The LWD service is combinable with rotary steerable systems and is available as a 6¾-in. collar-based tool for use in borehole diameters from 83⁄8-in to 97⁄8-in.
Cubility was recognized for its MudCube system. MudCube is a closed, under-pressured system that produces low noise and vibration and emits no gas or oil vapor.
Fluid enters a continuous, rotating screen belt with a vacuum beneath the screen. Solids remain atop the screen, fall off the end as a dry mass, and the screen cleaned with an air knife. Fluid is vacuumed through screen apertures and enters a closed-loop system. The fluid is degassed and evacuated or vented.
The MudCube system was tested at the StatoilHydro-Cubility test center.
Downhole tools
Two awards went to downhole tools.
Expro was recognized for its downhole tool incorporating the ViewMax sideview camera for inspecting conditions downhole, such as suspected casing failures.
The tool allows an operator to switch between a down-view camera and the new side camera. The operator can also rotate the tool 360º to provide a circumferential view of the pipe or look ahead.
Operators can run the tool on both fiber optic wireline or on conventional electric line. Clear fluid is still a prerequisite for optimum viewing.
The tool has a 12.4-ft length, 21⁄8-in. diameter and weighs 65 lb. It is rated for 257° F. and 10,000 psi.
Weatherford was recognized for its MCT, which allows multiple cuts through tubing.
Weatherford says the tool cuts downhole tubulars without needing chemicals or explosives and facilitates fishing by displacing tubing cleanly, whether in tension or compression, with no flaring and no debris left in the well.
The tool allows rigless interventions and is operated on an electric line for depth control.
Downhole cement, injection
Two awards, both to Schlumberger, went to downhole cement and injection technologies.
Schlumberger was awarded for its FUTUR technology, which can automatically self-heal in the presence of hydrocarbon leaks. FUTUR is used as an additional isolation barrier above the reservoir and reacts to applied stress when the cement sheath is damaged.
It has been used to prevent sustained casing pressure, to mitigate surface casing vent flow and gas migration, and to contain leaks and enhance zonal isolation in underground gas storage wells.
Schlumberger also received an award for its ResInject device for distributing injection fluids along an entire wellbore section, such as long laterals in horizontal wells.
The device is a sister tool of the ResFlow device for production wells although the injection device has a different nozzle configuration to avoid erosion. The ceramic nozzles in the injection device form a ring around the base pipe directing fluid flow longitudinally to the base pipe of the wire-wrapped sand-screen.
By including different nozzle sizes, an operator can have low-permeability zones receive more injection fluid.
Mooring, lifting
Three awards went to mooring and lifting technologies.
Delmar Systems was recognized for its OMNI-Max anchor, a gravity-installed, vertically-loaded anchor for deepwater MODU mooring.
The OMNI-Max can be loaded in any direction and the load angle can change without adversely affecting its foundation capacity. This could be a critical factor in station-keeping in the event of multiple line failure.
The first OMNI-Max anchor used in this industry was installed in December 2007 in the Gulf of Mexico.
Versabar was recognized for its Bottom Feeder, a new heavy-lift system designed, built, and operated by Versabar affiliate Versabuild for retrieving hurricane-toppled platform topsides from the seabed (OGJ, May 4, 2008, p. 70).
Each of the six eight-leg topsides retrieved to date by the system was in a single lift with peak lift weights of up to 1,600 tons. Cargo barges hauled the retrieved topsides ashore for scrapping.
The system has a rated lifting capacity of 4,000 tons and includes four independent lift blocks that provide control during the lifting of large unbalanced structures for which accurate weight data is unavailable.
Yantai Raffles received an award for its Taisun crane, which is designed to sit across a 380 m by 120 m dry dock.
The crane has two fixed beams placed horizontally across the dock floor on four columns. Spanning an overall length of 120 m, the beams, with lifting capacity of 10,000 tonnes each, are at 89 m and 119 m heights and have 83 m and 113 m lifting height.
The shipyard installation of 96 lifting devices will enable the mating of an entire outfitted deck box of a semisubmersible rig onto its hull-pontoons in one step, reducing work hazards at high heights and in the open sea. Yantai Raffles says the 1-day mating process, compared to conventional methods, will reduce both risks and time while improving quality.
