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12 SPOTLIGHT & NEWSTHEPRESSAND JOURNAL
February 2013 Energy THEPRESSAND JOURNALFebruary 2013Energy
Dont let complacency creepintoyour subsea campaigns
HSEQ Essentials
BrianMinty
Vroon orderssupport vesselVroon Offshore Services has ordered a
subsea support vessel (SSV) at FujianSoutheast Shipyard in China, with an
option for a second vessel. This follows
the two SSVs built at the shipyard in
2012, VOS Shine and VOS Sweet.
The company described the new ves-
sel, to be named VOS Sugar, as a mod-
ern SSV with retractable thruster and
super silent tunnel thruster, providing
a high standard of comfort for bothpassengers and crew.The 68m vessel is scheduled for de-
livery in early 2015 and will be oper-
ated by Vroon Offshore Services in Den
Helder, The Netherlands.
ExxonMobilsanctionsHebron fieldThe Hebron field development off-
shore Newfoundland and Labrador inthe Canadian North Atlantic has been
sanctioned by operator ExxonMobil
and co-venturers in the project.
Located some 350km offshore
Newfoundland, the Hebron platform
will be a concrete gravity-based
structure (GBS) standing in 95m
water depth.
The field is estimated to hold
700million barrels of recoverable oil.
Fabricom opensTyneacademyFabricom, a GDF Suez Energy Services
company with a significant presence in
Aberdeen, has launched its skills and
development academy on Tyneside as
an investment in the next generation
of talent required to sustain North Sea
prosperity.
The facility has been developed by
engineers for engineers to provide a
fully-integrated training, learning anddevelopment set of programmes aimed
at graduates, apprentices and people
looking to upgrade or diversify skills.
More than 30 are already undergo-
ing apprenticeships, graduate training
programmes and professional develop-
ment schemes with another intake ofaround 12 expected this year.
As operators face the dual challenge
of sustaining their production levels
in mature regions while effectively
exploiting the uncapped reserves in
growth areas, the potential for sub-
sea capital expenditure for the re-
mainder of the decade has in-creased dramatically.
However, with this increased de-
mand and requirement to meet pro-
ject deadlines, while utilising more
complex technologies, comes oppor-
tunity for complacency to creep in
related to the management of
health and safety in addition to the
vast complexity of operations, logis-
tics and the coordination of multi-ple activities.
Advances in technology are in-
creasingly being tested and de-
ployed in response to the offshore
industry's demand for solutions to
challenges; deeper waters, sustain-
ing production rates in mature de-
velopments, boosting flow rates in
low pressure reservoirs, accommo-dating a larger number of fields tiedback to host facilities and ensuring
the energy and cost efficiency of a
project.
But thats just the hydrocarbons
extraction sector. What about other
subsea projects, such as windfarms
with cable tie-ins and pil-
ing activities, sea-bed
mining for miner-
als and potentialgas hydrates to
name just a
few.
Operators
are being
forced to de-
liver in remote
and harsher
locations, their
projects requir-
ing sophisti-
cated and expensive equipment and
services that can cost significantly
more than the standard equivalent.
Gaining efficiency (monetary) can
only be achieved by careful evalua-
tion, selection and management of
the multitude of service providers
required to deliver these projects.
Given all of the above and thecurrent challenges within the indus-try to meet the demand for experi-
enced subsea competent personnel,
health and safety becomes a pre-
dominant factor in supplier selec-
tion.
Apart from the risk to people, as-
sets and the environment, delays
caused by unplanned events can re-
sult in severe financial implica-
tions to everyone involved inthe project.
These often complex sub-
sea developments commonly
use multiple services at the
same time; diving, platform
normal supply, entry in to
the exclusion zone, trenching
and ROV operations to name
but a few, thus requiring con-
trol of simultaneous operations(SIMOPS).
However, in many cases,
nearby day-to-day
asset operations
and activities
continue as well
as other lesser
known activities adding to the
complex nature and management of
these high-risk operations.
Supply chain selection and evalu-
ation, risk management, interface
management who does what,
when and how, are all crucial along
with the negative implications of us-
ing the wrong control system at thewrong time.Primacy of systems is the single
most appropriate control measure
to be defined at the outset of a pro-
ject and correct management and
delivery against this throughout the
project is fundamental.
Achieving this with effective due
diligence and management must be
the primary focus of any subsea
management system and as such,the priority of any operator carrying
out these activities.
At FQM we have many years ex-
perience in the design, implementa-
tion and management of supply
chain selection and the criticality of
both interface development and on-
going management.
We are therefore well placed to
help you make sure that compla-cency is not a feature of your subsea
campaigns.
Brian Minty is an associate director
with HSEQ consultancy and training
organisation FQM, previously known
as Facilitators Quality Management
and part of Facilitators InternationalLLP
Saudi Aramco is preparing to
launch into a record exploration
and development campaign tar-
geting unconventional gas while
continuing to drill for oil in order
to sustain its potential productioncapacityataround12.5millionbar-
rels per day.It h a s b een report ed t h a t
Aramcointendsto addanother30
rigstoits fleetthisyear,whichwill
raise its total land rig count to
more than 170.
Thisisdespitethecompanycut-
ting current oil output to accom-
modate the present oversupply
around the globe.A knock-on benefit of the cur-
rent oil situation is that Aramco
willbeableto focusitsexploration
a n d developm en t effort on
prospectingforunconventionals. .
. primarily in the north-western
part of the country.
There are two further prospec-
tive areas of interest . . . in the
Ghawar area and Rub Al-Khali.Ghawaris thelargestoilfield in
Saudi Arabia. However, South
Ghawaris seenasa tight-gassand
opportunity.Theareais closetoin-
frastructure and there is a large
amount of geological data avail-
able from the development of the
oil field, which can be used to de-
fine the tight-gas sands.RubAl-Khaliis locatedin south-ern Saudi Arabia where shale and
condensateplaysare beginningto
capture interest.
Company sources have indi-
cated that some of the additional
rigs will be used for field mainte-
nancesuchasdrillingforinjection
water and sustaini ng present
wells.
Sinceitlauncheditsgasproduc-t ion push in 2009 - 10, Sa udi
Aramco has seen its estimated
conventional gas reserves rise to
approximately 283trillion cu.ft
(2011 estimate).
The company has hinted that
SaudiA rabiasunconventional gas
resources may exceed that.
Early last year, US oilfield ser-
vices giant Baker Hughes andAramco opened a joint research
centreatDharhan whichis focused
on understanding and developing
unconventional resources.
The Dhahran facility offers re-
searchopportunitiesinareasrang-
ingfrompetrophysics,drilling,ge-
omechanics,fluids andproductiontechnology.
SaudiAramco setto ramp uprig fleet to170 units
BrianMinty
INCREASEDDEMAND:Complexsubseadevelopmentscommonlyusemultipleservicesatthesametime
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