Steve O’Leary, technical services director for Seadrill, emphasized the need for practical condition monitoring solutions for drilling contractors at the IADC Rig Condition Monitoring Workshop, 19 January in Houston.

Evaluation and recertification programs for equipment and systems are plentiful, but offshore contractors are looking for practical solutions that are universally acceptable in the industry, particularly for risers, pipe-handling systems and blowout preventers. “Drilling contractors are at the front end of the curve in condition monitoring,” Steve O’Leary, technical services director for Seadrill, said in a presentation at the IADC Rig Condition Monitoring Workshop, 19 January in Houston. “We need to know what to monitor, how often to monitor, when and why we’re doing it and what to do when we see a change in condition.”

Current practices that involve automatically changing out existing equipment/components for new is costly and inefficient,, but switching to a condition-based maintenance and monitoring program will require more cooperation between the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and the people on the rig.

“The OEM must provide guidance for maintenance and acceptable criteria for continued operations that are condition-based, not merely calendar-based, for hydraulic systems, vibration analysis on thrusters and other critical functions,” Mr O’Leary said.  On the drilling contractor side, they must understand the difference between the OEM “certifying” the equipment and “re-qualifying” the equipment as fit for purpose. The latter requires the contractor to actively inspect and maintain equipment so that it meets manufacturer and regulatory requirements.

“We also need to know when a system has wandered away from its normal mode of operation,” Mr O’Leary continued. “Some contractors choose to inspect equipment after a fixed, in-service period, and some carry out the inspections on a routine calendar basis. Both methods contain risk. An enhanced asset management strategy will ensure that we reduce, as far as reasonably practical, the risk and potential for equipment to fail,” he said.

Deepwater especially critical

Such measures are especially important for deepwater operations, where inspection programs can’t merely be fault-finding exercises, Mr O’Leary said. “We should not accept anything less than a 100% inspection of critical components.”

Going forward, drilling contractors should work with OEMs to review inspection protocols and develop long-term business plans. An asset management plan that includes, among other things, baseline inspection procedures that can define changes in systems and equipment that would require repairs and ensure the assets are fit for continued service, is also necessary, Mr O’Leary said. “A baseline plan will establish a system of historical performance that can ensure more meaningful capture of real-time information and enable the development of signature testing in a number of ways.

“An ideal inspection program for offshore rigs should include ongoing riser and pipe-handling inspections and BOP monitoring, which are critical,” he continued. “We do spot checks now, but often spot checks don’t pick up systemic problems.”

And although equipment-monitoring systems should ensure safety, they also must deliver cost efficiency. “Our systems sometimes fail or shut down for an entire day because the monitoring systems aren’t smart enough to tell us in advance that a piece of equipment needs to be shut down and why,” Mr O’Leary said. “We need monitoring systems that are minimally intrusive, safe and easy to use. We need to know something is wrong before it goes wrong.”

The vision for condition monitoring is to deliver actionable data that can be used to reduce the cost of repairs and downtime and increase productivity, said Sepideh Otmishi, product application specialist for Caterpillar’s Global Petroleum division, at the IADC Rig Condition Monitoring Workshop on 19 January.

As rigs and oilfield equipment are increasingly deployed to remote locations and equipped with complex electronic engines and control systems, the risks of failure, unplanned shutdowns and downtime are posing increasing challenges as well. “Fifty years ago, we were dealing with mechanical engines, and we really didn’t have to do anything with them. We just ran them until they died,” said Sepideh Otmishi, product application specialist for Caterpillar’s Global Petroleum division, a provider of electronic data and condition monitoring services for rigs worldwide.  “But now, with electric engines and equipment more complicated than ever, we have a tremendous amount of data to manage.”

That, combined with pressure to increase productivity and a changing work force, has pushed the industry to develop more sophisticated systems for condition monitoring (CM).

Speaking at the IADC Rig Condition Monitoring Workshop on 19 January in Houston, Ms Otmishi discussed the benefits of CM, specifically how electronic data can be used to offset engine and equipment challenges for rig operators. It is a more comprehensive process than health monitoring, which provides the current condition of equipment in real time with visual graphics but offers no analysis or indication of potential failures.

“CM is a proactive analysis process using equipment and application data from multiple sources to make critical maintenance, component replacement and repair decisions,” she said. “Our vision is to provide customers with an end-to-end solution by delivering actionable data that can be used to create an informed decision to reduce the cost of repairs and downtime, and increase productivity.”

Advance warning

At Caterpillar, CM involves five elements: electronic data, fluid analysis, site condition, equipment history and regular inspections. Benefits are reduced cost of parts and labor; greater availability and uptime of critical equipment such as compressors, generators and transmissions; and less collateral damage associated with unforeseen failures. “In gathering the information and analyzing and aggregating the data, by the end of the day we can tell you if something is going to fail,” Ms Otmishi said. “We correct emerging problems and move unscheduled repairs to scheduled shutdowns.”

The 24/7 monitoring process detects anomalies and abnormal signals by simultaneously looking at multiple parameters, allowing specialists to provide recommendations for checking assets long before problems are apparent. “The point is, we can provide advance warning of a problem days in advance, not a few hours in advance – which would defeat the purpose of CM,” Ms Otmishi noted. “We give the customer enough time to actually fix, inspect, replace and repair the situation when it is convenient.”

In one case on a Canadian work site, a signal indicated the air-restriction parameter on a piece of equipment was inconsistent and running significantly lower than required. Caterpillar informed the customer and advised an inspection, which revealed a broken air filter tube that was allowing dirt and debris into the air system. Within two days, the item was repaired and the system was back online with no unexpected shutdowns and no downtime.

The Baker Hughes Competence Management Program, based on compliance, reliability and performance, gives company employees the training and tools necessary to be able to meet and exceed current and upcoming operating requirements and government regulations. It offers a way to measure the experience employees bring to each project and provides them a career path.

“Proactively seeking this full accreditation of our competence system required thorough audits by IADC,” Baker Hughes’ president of global products and services Art Soucy said. “This accreditation stands as further evidence of our company’s commitment to compliance and reliability and is a way to let our customers know each of our employees is proficient to work where they are assigned.”

To receive the IADC accreditation, Baker Hughes’ program was reviewed over several months, including a review of the performance criteria in place through curriculum managers and competency managers, who work closely with those in the technical, engineering and operations fields. IADC also looked at Baker Hughes’ process for defining competencies, training resources and methods to support the training and development process, as well as the company’s assessment system for evaluating competency. Documentation and quality assurance also was considered.

“Baker Hughes’ accreditation reflects a new approach at IADC to help ensure that not only are drilling contractors meeting a high level of standards in developing employee competency, but oilfield service companies are meeting the same competency assurance standards as well,” said Mark Denkowski, IADC vice president of accreditation & certification programs. “IADC congratulates Baker Hughes on becoming IADC Competence Assurance accredited and demonstrating to the industry and the public that the company has a formal system in place for evaluating the performance of its personnel.”

Click here for more information on IADC’s Competence Assurance Program.

Recently, IADC and 85 other groups representing the business and agricultural communities jointly wrote to US President Barack Obama expressing concerns over a proposal to merge the Office of the USTR with five other agencies into a single cabinet-level department.

The USTR plays an invaluable role in coordinating the different entities within the US government with specialized trade functions based on expertise. By balancing the interests of various constituencies and agencies, the USTR provides assurance “that no one has a thumb on the scale,” the letter stated.

As a separate entity within the Office of the President, the USTR is able to act responsively to negotiate, implement and enforce US trade objectives. The USTR is actively involved in growing US exports, eliminating foreign market barriers and improving the overall competitiveness of US farm and manufactured goods and services in the global economy.

Mr Petty can be reached via email.

AGR’s EC-Drill allows the drilling fluid level in the conductor to be actively adjusted so bottomhole pressure can be accurately manipulated.

AGR has completed its first Brazilian operation using the EC-Drill system, a managed pressure drilling (MPD) technology based on the RMR system and modified for Petrobras’ jackup operations. The technology application on two Brazilian wells in the Rio Grande do Norte region was the first time that AGR has provided dual gradient drilling (DGD) services to Petrobras.

EC-Drill allows operators to actively adjust the drilling fluid level in the conductor, allowing accurate manipulation of bottomhole pressure for more effective drilling.

For Petrobras, the system significantly improved drilling of the top-hole sections on the two wells. All mud and cuttings were returned to the rig without discharge to the sea, minimizing the environmental footprint, and bottomhole pressure was manipulated to compensate for ECD. The amount of drilling fluid lost to the formation was also minimized while running and cementing the surface casing.

Petrobras contract manager José Fernandes said, “The AGR system effectively helped in controlling the pressure inside the well, reflecting positively on combating the fluid losses and reducing operational costs.”

Terry Scanlon, senior vice president AGR Americas, said, “We are pleased to report that Petrobras is now experiencing the enhanced drilling results that we committed to deliver with our environmental and DGD capabilities. Petrobras has been an excellent partner in this program, and we are continuing with them to fine-tune system capabilities for further wells offshore Brazil in the near future.”

The Rio Grande do Norte wells were the first two projects following a series of two-year services contracts signed between AGR and Petrobras in 2010.

The opening ceremony will be officiated by Yingluck Shinawatra, prime minister of Thailand and include remarks by Arak Chonlathanont, Thailand minister of energy; Dr Sok An, deputy prime minister of Cambodia and chairman of Cambodian National Petroleum Authority; Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al-Hamli, United Arab Emirates minister of energy; Dr Mohammed Hamed Al-Rumhy, Oman minister of oil and gas; Norkun Sitthiphong, PTT Exploration and Production board chairman and permanent secretary of Thailand ministry of energy; and Mahmoud M. Abdulbaqi, IPTC board chairman and chairman, Argas.

Speakers at the executive plenary session on 7 February will include:

• Zhou Jiping, president of China National Petroleum Corporation and vice chairman and president of PetroChina Co Ltd;
• Yves-Louis Darricarrere, executive vice president of Total S.A. and president of Total Exploration & Production;
• Dato’ Wee Yiaw Hin, executive vice president, exploration & production, PETRONAS;
• Gerald Schotman, chief technology officer of Shell; and
• Hugh W. Thompson, vice president Asia Pacific of ExxonMobil.

The executive plenary session is an opportunity for top-level senior executives to discuss the conference theme, “Technology and Operational Excellence: Keys to Sustainable Global Energy,” and provides conference delegates with an over-arching perspective of the industry. Anon Sirisaengtaksin, 2011 IPTC executive committee chairman and president and CEO, PTT Exploration and Production; and Nasser Al-Jaidah, CEO, Qatar Petroleum International, will co-chair the session.

More than 3,000 people are expected to attend the multi-disciplinary event that will feature more than 350 papers in 60 technical sessions. The conference program also includes four panel sessions:

• Unlocking unconventional resources — keys to success: technology, costs, opportunity and global adoption;
• Technology development and innovation;
• Operational excellence: people, processes and technology; and
• Deepwater challenges — Gulf of Mexico’s long-term impact and how can the industry move forward.

Visit the IPTC website for more information.

Ghost Reamer has been used in more than 100 shale applications. The eight-bladed PDC reamer eliminates wiper trips to save time and money.

Stabil Drill, a Superior Energy Servicescompany, has introduced the Stabil Drill Ghost Reamer for horizontal shale drilling.

Ghost Reamer, an eight-bladed polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) reamer, allows the wellbore to be cleaned and cleared on rigs with a top drive by back reaming and on rigs without a top drive by pulling out to the top of the curve and then rotating forward until reaching total depth, which eliminates wiper trips – saving time and money.

“Customers were coming to us with issues of getting out of the hole when drilling with a motor in horizontal shale wells,” Donnie Williams, tool developer for Stabil Drill, said. “Our years of field and developmental experience allowed us to develop a solution for doglegs, ledges and cutting beds.”

Within the last few months, the Ghost Reamer has been used in more than 100 shale applications.

To withstand the effects of temperatures as low as -40°F and in an earthquake zone, this reverse osmosis water purification system is larger than standard desalination systems.

MECO, a Houston manufacturer of engineered water purification facilities used in the offshore oil and gas industry worldwide, has shipped a reverse osmosis (RO) system for drinking and process water purification to a major oil and gas company operating in the extreme Arctic environment off the northeast coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island. The facility is expected to be operational in six to 12 months.

The custom-built desalination plant, the first RO, or membrane-based, system the company has built for arctic conditions, was designed to withstand the effects of temperatures as low as -40°F in an earthquake zone. It will be deployed on a large platform rig, where it will purify water for drinking and for platform processes such as turbine washing and other operating systems. The size of the rig and the remote, harsh-climate conditions mandated the plant be designed with significant technical requirements, MECO president George Gsell said.

Reliability was crucial in the development of a water purification system for use offshore Sakhalin Island, MECO president George Gsell said. “A remote production facility can shut down if it doesn’t have high-purity process water.”

“Machines that go on drilling rigs are fairly standard, but for platforms, they must include specifications for the type of steel, electrical systems and environmental conditions,” Mr Gsell said. “In addition, for this environment we needed to build a system that is completely reliable because we’re dealing with a critical utility. A remote production facility can shut down if it doesn’t have high-purity process water.”

Two key considerations in designing this plant were the ambient temperature environment and the freezing cold seawater. “Operators need these systems to be highly reliable in remote locations, and with the ambient temperature is as cold as it is in the Arctic, we had to take steps to ensure the plant will operate continuously,” Mr Gsell noted. “That means doubling up on pumps and using premium material – no plastic.” The system includes two trains producing 100,000 gallons a day of desalinated water, a stand-alone electric heater and a de-ionized water storage tank.

Insulation, premium materials

The plant and the seawater piping are built with titanium and Super Duplex Stainless Steel. The piping, instruments and filters are completely insulated and heat-traced to remain warm in the event the plant is shut down for maintenance or any other reason. Because the seawater is so cold, twice as much membrane area is needed to process the water, making the plant physically larger than standard desalination systems. About 300,000 gallons of seawater are moved to get about 100,000 gallons, around 35%, of fresh water.

There are significant challenges in ensuring the plant operates continuously and does not freeze up. “Seawater has a lower freezing point than fresh water, -2°C, or about 28°F,” Mr Gsell explained. “But when that water is desalinated, there is the potential on the other side for the fresh water to freeze. To address this unique requirement, we have to preheat the feed water by putting large heaters in the seawater environment. This requires very high-grade materials.” For example, the heating elements are built with Inconel (high-grade) alloys to avoid corrosion and must have a low-watt density to avoid scaling.

The Sakhalin Island region is also an earthquake zone; the plant was designed with specific seismic requirements so the system doesn’t break apart and malfunction in an earthquake.

MECO has designed thermal desalination plants for the North Slope of Alaska and for the North Atlantic Hibernia field off the coast of eastern Canada. “Today, more companies are using RO systems because of significant improvements to the technology and because an RO system can produce a larger quantity of water in a given space,” Mr Gsell said. “Trillions of gallons of water are desalinated every day around the world, and 60% of it is now done with RO systems.”

Richard Schmidt, president and CEO of Freudenberg Oil & Gas, speaks with DC editorial coordinator Katherine Scott about Freudenberg’s new material and product testing facility in Houston.

By Katherine Scott, editorial coordinator

Freudenberg Oil & Gas launched its newly constructed, 14,000-sq-ft material and products testing facility in Houston on 23 January. Within the facility are five specialty labs with comprehensive testing labs for thermal cycling, high pressure/high temperature (HPHT), material properties, product testing and sour gas. A sixth lab, for rubber mixing, is expected to be completed by June.

Christoph Mosmann, member of the management board for Freudenberg Group, gives his opening remarks on the new testing facility in Houston.

With these testing labs, Freudenberg will be able to perform in-house product verification testing and the company’s own sealing products, as well as customer projects. Christoph Mosmann, member of the management board for Freudenberg Group, noted that the Germany-based company is taking a long-term approach to the business.

“We are patient enough to build step by step, and this lab speaks for the technology we want to provide our customers,” Mr Mosmann said. The new facility was a $1.5 million investment and took approximately a year to construct.

In the thermal cycling lab, rated for 15,000 psi and 250°F, an environmental chamber, gas booster and accumulator vessel help product function testing for sealing solutions such as spring seals, T-seals and FS seals. Within the chamber, temperatures can range from -100°F to 375°F.

The HPHT test lab, rated for 15,000 psi at 430°F, uses rapid gas decompression testing to assess material and function of products such as O-rings, spring seals and T-seals. The lab includes insulated, self-contained test vessels with band heaters between vessel and insulation. “There are about 10 cycles that we’ll subject the seals to, and afterwards we’ll take the fixture out and cut the seals into equal quadrants and analyze them for cracking, blistering, splitting,” Monica Villescas, chemist for Freudenberg Oil & Gas, explained.

Physical testing is performed in the material properties test lab, which is equipped with a tensile tester that reads whole data curves at once and connects to a computer for data storage and analysis.

The product test lab is rated to 15,000 psi at 350°F and was designed to function-test products such as BOPs and ram packers. It is capable of testing a full 13-in. BOP. “We’re not just going to pressure-test the BOP, but we’re going to actuate the BOP, and basically actuate anything else that we would put our seals on,” Kairy Otero, mechanical engineer for Freudenberg Oil & Gas, said.

Finally, the sour gas test lab, for up to 15,000 psi and 4430°F, will test a spectrum of gases and fluids, as well as customer-specific combinations. Material and function tests include atmospheric pressure to 2,000 psi and immersion testing to 15,000 psi, as well as Norsok M-710 sour gas testing.

The yet-to-be-finished rubber mixing lab will focus on developing new material recipes.

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Texas’ petroleum landscape continued the shift from natural gas toward oil as the state sustained a two-year recovery of the upstream oil and gas economy in 2011, according to a monthly index compiled by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. The Texas Petroleum Index (TPI) ended last year at 259.1, up from 229.9 at the end of 2010

In a year-end review of 2011, Karr Ingham, creator of the Texas Petroleum Index and owner of Ingham Economic Reporting, explains how Texas sustained a two-year recovery of the upstream oil and gas economy. The Texas Petroleum Index (TPI) ended 2011 at 259.1.

“That’s exactly two solid years of expansion, 24-straight month-to-month increases in the TPI,” Karr Ingham, creator of the index and owner of Ingham Economic Reporting, said. However, the index “has not yet managed to work its way back to where we were in the peak period in 2008, and that has essentially everything to do with the fact that we’re getting very little help, if any, on the natural gas side of the E&P equation in Texas. The effect of natural gas E&P in Texas is frankly staggering.”

The decline of Texas natural gas production is not in keeping with trends on the national level. “Texas is very responsive to gas price decline, and activity in the Barnett certainly did not shut down, but it slowed dramatically,” Mr Ingham explained. While US natural gas production increased slightly by about 3% to 4% in 2011 over 2010, Texas experienced a decline of 6% to 7%.

Texas’ petroleum industry continues to experience a shift in activity from natural gas to crude oil production in response to low natural gas prices.

The expanding crude oil activity more than compensates for the natural gas side, however. The statewide rig count, driven by oil or liquids-rich projects, continued its climb in 2011 and has already shown a positive number for 2012. “The January rig count has reflected an increase above 920,” Mr Ingham said, “and that trend should continue an upward march close to where our peak was in 2008.” Drilling activity in Texas peaked at a monthly average of 946 rigs in September 2008.

Oil drilling is also driving another component of the index – the number of drilling permits. Approximately 22,480 permits were issued in Texas in 2011, short of the 2008 peak of 24,000. However, in 2008, both natural gas and oil were contributors to the peak, whereas in 2011, “very few permits were issued for rigs that drilled for natural gas,” Mr Ingham said.

The industry expansion in oil activity has spilled over to boost employment numbers in the state as well. The direct industry jobs and the ripple effects of supporting jobs make up a significant share of Texas’ total employment growth. “On a conservative basis in Texas, for every industry job that is added, you could multiply that by about five,” Mr Ingham stated. The state surpassed its 2008 peak in terms of employment last year, employing more than 230,000 Texans in the oil and gas industry.

Last year marked the state’s highest crude oil production volume since 1998, at 453.3 million bbls, while natural gas output was 577.9 bcf, a year-over-year decline of 10.8 percent, and Mr Ingham expects Texas production to continue to trend toward oil in 2012 and beyond.

TPI, a service of the Texas Alliance, is a composite number based on economic indicators, including oil and gas prices, rig counts, drilling permits and production volume. The index began in January 1995 at 100.0 as the base.