Offshore staff
HOUSTON– Fugro has successfully completed a year-long wellhead monitoring project for BP Americas Inc. measuring BOP stack motions and calculating wellhead fatigue in the Gulf of Mexico.
The drilling campaign was conducted in 6,000 ft (1,829 m) of water and used the Fugro Wellhead and Riser Instrumentation Service (WARIS).
This installation included transmission of motion spectra from the BOP stack and riser using standard hydroacoustic modems and the automatic processing of this data with topsides environmental data to show levels of motion and fatigue and their correlation with sea states and ocean currents. This provided BP with access to real-time subsea data to aid its decision making throughout the deployment.
Communications from the lower marine riser package (LMRP) and riser remained successful even with surface wave heights greater than 3 m (10 ft) at times during the campaign.
The DeepData subsea motion monitoring pods, the main components in the system, were deployed to positions on the BOP stack and riser by an ROV. The pods were integrated with hydroacoustic modems and had battery capacity to last for one year of deployment. A topsides system was supplied that included vessel motion monitoring and links to existing environmental monitoring systems.
To ensure that the data could be accessed and used by BP engineers anywhere in the world, Fugro’s onshore data delivery system was used to plot and display all the processed data from the WARIS system.
The success of the project indicated the technology could be deployed on other wells where fatigue capacity and potential loading is of interest.
Stuart Killbourn, principal engineer at Fugro, said: “This was a project with challenging timescales and some demanding engineering. By working closely with BP and with Fugro staff in our Houston office, we managed to create success for both companies.”
John Henderson, Team Leader for Subsea Wells Engineered Solutions and Mitigations at BP, said: “The collaboration between BP and Fugro demonstrates a leap forward in monitoring capability for the industry.”
06/08/2015
