Tullow Oil announced that drilling and testing of the Cara prospect in license 636 in the Norwegian North Sea has been completed. The well was drilled to a total depth of 2,702 m in 349 m of water, 6 km northeast of the Gjøa field.

Applying best practices – including early coordination between the drilling contractor and OEM, constant communication and contingency plans for unplanned work – can help drive down the cost of five-year special periodic surveys for drilling rigs. In a presentation at the 2016 IADC Asset Integrity and Reliability Conference in Houston, Trey Walker, Fleet Care Manager for National Oilwell Varco (NOV), presented examples of successful in-yard and in-field surveys completed ahead of time and within budget. In this video from the conference on 31 August, Mr Walker explains how early planning helped NOV preform these surveys successfully. He also discusses how applying best practices helped the company to complete the in-field survey several days ahead of time despite unexpected changes to the project’s scope.

The drilling industry places significant emphasis on figuring out how to handle well control events once they have been identified, but far less attention is given to avoiding well control situations before they occur. “We’re treating symptoms of well control after something has already...

By Alex Endress, Editorial Coordinator Today’s offshore drilling rigs are highly complex and equipped with numerous digitized and interconnected systems. To monitor the functionality of these systems, rigs have also been equipped with numerous alarms – some that are safety- and mission-critical, and some that aren’t. Deciphering which alarms are critical and reacting accordingly is a matter of proper engineering and training, both of which were discussed at an Ocean Energy Safety Institute (OESI) forum, “Focusing on Alarm Management for Safer Offshore Operations,” held on 24 August in Houston. “Alarm fatigue or alert fatigue occurs when one is exposed to a large number of frequent alarms and consequently becomes desensitized to them,” Bob Blank, Vice President Operational Excellence at Noble ...

A mid-year survey of more than 200 companies shows that global upstream spending is poised to grow in 2017 after consecutive years of declines. The Barclays Upstream Spending Survey estimated that spending will increase by approximately 3% to 8% at current oil prices. Large-cap E&P companies are expected to increase North American CAPEX by as much as 50% next year, although international oil companies (IOCs) – particularly those in the offshore sector – will still be very cautious in their spending.

Malta-based Mediterranean Maritime Hub (MMH) has launched a concept called “Rig Pit Stop” that aims to allow companies to cut costs without cutting capability. “The ‘Pit Stop’ principle is that a rig can come in and offload, for example, a BOP whole and bring on a new BOP that’s sitting there,” Steve Colville, MMH CEO and former CEO/President of IADC, said. “The old one is refurbished once the rig has left, so the rig does not have to wait while the equipment is refurbished. We think it’s possible to reduce yard costs by at least 15%.”

Shell announced that production has started from the Stones development in the Gulf of Mexico. Stones is expected to produce around 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) when fully ramped up at the end of 2017.

As of July, Petrobras had 39 floating rigs on contract in Brazil. That compares with 60 at the beginning of 2015 and 42 at the end of that year, according to Rudimar Lorenzatto, E&P Executive Manager for the Brazilian national oil company. Despite this fall in activity, Petrobras remains heavily focused on the pre-salt. Of the 60 wells planned for 2016 and another 60 planned for 2017, 60% are expected to be in the pre-salt areas. “Pre-salt is the main focus in the future for Petrobras’ business plans,” Mr Lorenzatto said.

In April, ABS partnered with the Norwegian coast guard, academic institutions and other stakeholder companies to perform a search and rescue exercise in Svalbard, Norway. The University of Stavanger, Company GMC and the Norwegian Coast Guard organized the exercise, which took place on the K V Svalbard, a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel. The exercise was conducted to gain a better understanding of the IMO Polar Code’s requirements, which many in the industry regard as vague, according to ABS. For example, the code requires the crews of maritime vessels, including drilling rigs, to be equipped be able to survive five days in polar waters while awaiting rescue. There was concern about whether this was even possible with existing equipment, said ABS ...

Although Petronas had established its Smart Drilling Optimization Monitoring Centre (Smart DOMC) in 2010, the operator decided in 2014 to change its approach to rig-site monitoring. “At that time, the environment of the real-time (monitoring) was fully managed by a service company, so we felt that we didn’t have control,” Noorazmah Yusoff with Petronas said in a presentation at the 2016 IADC/SPE Asia Pacific Drilling Technology Conference, held 22-24 August in Singapore. “We wanted to have more control of the data, from the location portion up to the integration portion of it.”