Offshore staff
STRAUME, Norway – A/S Norske Shell has amended its contract with Enhanced Drilling to cover use of the EC-Drill Controlled Mud Level (CML) system.
A combined Riserless Mud Recovery (RMR) and CML system will be deployed from the semisubmersible Transocean Barents on the Ormen Lange field in the Norwegian Sea, starting 1Q 2022.
Norske Shell’s contract, which runs through 2023 and with two one-year options, already stipulates use of Enhanced Drilling’s RMR and CTS systems.
The company has collaborated with Shell for the past few years, including on the recently completed RMR operations for Sabah Shell’s Malikai Phase 2 project offshore Malaysia and the current CML project on the ultra-deepwater drillship Deepwater Pontus in the Gulf of Mexico.
Bernt Eikemo, vice president Sales & Marketing at Enhanced Drilling, said that by combining the two systems, the riser-less section can be drilled with engineered mud and full volume control, while also deriving benefits from the CML system for the rest of the well.
EC-Drill is said to address various challenges such as drilling through a narrow pore pressure/fracture gradient window or overcoming issues with depletion.
It employs CML to manage wellbore pressure by controlling the mud level in the riser.
The system’s relatively small footprint is said to allow for swift rig integration, with no rotating control device or trapped pressure.
07/02/2021
