Advanced well stimulation vessel joins Gulf of Mexico fleet

The M/V Stim Star stimulation vessel can be sent to any of the world's offshore oil regions. It is equipped with the latest navigation guidance system and vessel control instrumenation, including full dynamic positioning capability. The ship has a length of 240 ft, beam of 56 ft, and draft of 21 ft (Fig. 1).

Captain Tommy Dupre of Edison Chouest Offshore, stands on the bridge of Stim Star, Halliburton's stimulation vessel which is equipped with the latest navigation guidance system and vessel control instrumentation, including full dynamic positioning capability (Fig. 2) [10,675 bytes].
HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES HAS ADDED A NEW deep water stimulation vessel to its Gulf of Mexico fleet, the M/V Stim Star (Fig. 1).

It has the material capacity, positioning capability, and speed to be the most efficient such vessel in the gulf, says Halliburton. It can also traverse the Atlantic and work in any of the world's offshore oil regions.

Because of its advanced positioning capabilities, the vessel can work in rough seas. It is rigged for deepwater tension leg platform operations.

Halliburton says the vessel has the largest sand capacity of any stimulation ship in the gulf and has virtually unlimited fluid capacity. The vessel can offer gel mixing "on the fly" with seawater. This means no lost rig time waiting on vessel reloading. The vessel is equipped with a quality-control lab, has mini-frac analysis capability, and can perform carbon dioxide stimulation.

Following are some of the vessels capabilities and capacities:

15,000 psi working pressure Grizzly pumps
9,600 hydraulic hp automatic remote control pumping equipment
50 bbl/min two-piece frac blender
20 bbl/min continuous acid blending
1.4 million lb proppant capacity
50 bbl/min seawater filtration system
350,000 gal fluid capacity
400 ft of reel-mounted 3 in. high pressure Coflexip-Stena hose. A second reel can be put in place for high rate jobs.

The vessel has 29 berths, 11 for crew, 18 for others.

Halliburton's other two stimulation vessels in the gulf are the War Admiral and Man-O-War.

Edgar Ortiz, president of Halliburton Energy Services, said at a formal showing of the vessel in late February that personnel aboard the company's gulf fleet average 15 years of experience in fracturing and stimulation technology.

Edison Chouest Offshore, L.L.C of Galliano, La., built the Stim Star and crews it.