SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY Rigid fightback Nevertheless, the leading exponent of the long-established approach to LNG offloading is not giving up easily. FMC Technologies expertise is based around using an articulating system of rigid steel pipe arms and swivels. FMC has held on to win both Satu and Prelude using extended versions of its side-by-side systems that can still deal with the increased demands of those projects. Four of its 16-inch Olaf arms are mounted on Prelude to handle its LNG. And even when faced with the need to go tandem, FMC has its act in shape. Over the last seven years, the company has evolved its Atol offering and regards this as now ready for deployment. Atol is an aerial array of free- hanging pipes and swivels that extends from a large gantry in a system able to reach out aft over a vessel separation distance of 100 metres or more. Meanwhile, at the smaller end of the diameter scale, Dutch company Gutteling has for some years been notching up a satisfying record for providing flexible LNG hose for commercial service albeit in fairly benign settings. In recent years, its hose has been used for operations such as inshore ship-to-ship transfers for the likes of Gasnor and Excelerate. Configurations An important factor in the tandem loading debate is the question of manifold position bow versus midships. With the worlds present fleet of LNG carriers standardised on mid-ships manifolds to receive and discharge their cargoes, a move to the bow is an expensive prospect. Yet if a tandem transfer system does not have to reach all the way along the carrier to midships then the journey is typically shortened by about 150 metres. This means reduced pressure losses and boil-off gas. Nevertheless, much emphasis remains on continuing to use midships manifolds if possible. Novel efforts include proposals that use the HiLoad mooring unit to hold the carrier safely offset at a shorter hose distance (see page 19). However, is a change to bow loading such a big deal?, 14 FLOW CHALLENGE: All designs from the various flexible cryopipe developers have a relatively rough interior compared with oil hoses. This is the bore of the LNG hose from Dunlop. questions consultant Brian Songhurst. For tandem systems you also need DP capability in your carrier, of course, and for coming projects you are likely to be ordering new anyway, he says. Recently retired from his role as director of LNG at Thyssen E&P, Songhurst has been keeping his hand in with things like a contribution to the 2016 book LNG Markets In Transition, published by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies on 6 September. Project hopes One way or another, the advanced LNG offloading groups are holding faith that their day will come. But hopes have been raised and dashed a number of times in recent years. In late 2009, Petrobras held a design competition for a large proposed floating LNG platform of about 2.7 million tonnes per annum liquefaction capacity. That project is now on hold. More recently the possibility of up to three huge liquefaction platforms, each in the same league as Prelude, at Woodsides Browse basin fields has yielded to an onshore alternative. UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGY 04 I 2016 Indonesias Abadi has gone the same way. Perhaps the most interesting prospect of all so far has been ExxonMobils currently deferred Scarborough project. Also off north-west Australia but with tougher design conditions than Prelude, the operator had aerial tandem offloading as its base case here right from the start, and is said to have put significant effort into technology qualification for such a system. But for now, Satu and Prelude remain the most demanding FLNG projects under way. Satu, also known as PFLNG-1, is on course to become the worlds first large-scale floating liquefaction platform to start up. After construction in South Korea by the Technip/Daewoo joint venture, this 1.2 million tpa vessel, 365 metres long, reached the Kanowit gas field off Malaysia on 30 May this year. It is now commissioning, with start-up likely by the end of this year. And although the second Petronas FLNG project for the Rotan field at one time appeared under the shadow of cancellation, it is now continuing, but at a slowed pace. The hull has been completed at Samsung and looks likely to be on stream by 2020. Meanwhile, Shells world- beating 490-metre long Prelude platform, designed to produce 3.6 million tpa of LNG, continues its majestic and extended path to completion at Samsung in South Korea. The operator has never given an on stream target date. Currently commentators predict 2018. So it could be a while before tandem offloading becomes a reality for LNG. As Songhurst notes, even if offshore liquefaction does pick up pace, in the current era of low prices few would consider going into rough water when there are probably easier pickings in calmer settings closer to shore. In its latest World FLNG market forecast to 2022, published in August, UK market analyst Douglas Westwood notes a flat picture for sanctioning of large- scale capital intensive liquefaction units over the past 24 months. However, despite near-term concerns, the long-term viability of FLNG technology is clear, says author Mark Adeosun. technology The bimonthly magazine for oil & gas innovators Issue 4 2016 Airborne inspectors: Drones rise to the oilfield challenge Mobile monitor: Troubleshooting to reduce rig downtime Arctic crossing: Polarled prepped for North Sea gas Pipeline technology comes full circle In the flow Fluid solu Oil and Gas Is Our Field of Competence Welding solutions for the oil & gas industry. Our welding consumables set the benchmark all along the oil and gas value chain from exploration, production to transportation and refinement. Whether used thousands of meters below sea level, under the most demandi technology AGENDA www.upstreamtechnologymagazine.com 4 2016 EDITORIAL OFFICES US: Upstream Technology, 5151 San Felipe, Suite 1440, Houston, Texas 77056. US Editor: Jennifer Pallanich Tel: +1 713 693 5520 jennifer.pallanichupstreamonline.com Contributing Editors: Adrian Cottrill, Terry Knott, Andre CONTENTS Spotlight GAS TECHNOLOGY 12 Gas transfer FLNG offloading concepts take shape. 04 20 Stepping out A deeper future for subsea compression. 16 6 Power lift Pioneering Spirit gets to work at Yme. 8 Tech Talk Call to action Shells Harry Brekelmans: Crisis demands a radical reset. 34 Air force In CONTENTS Spotlight PIPELINES 44 Polarled plus Ambitious gas pipeline project built with capacity to spare for future North Sea production. 55 Electric blanket A portable trace heating system for blocked lines. SEISMIC 24 Fuel potential Uncovering facts about a plentiful resource. 30 Under pressure M YME REMOVAL Lift-off for Pioneering Spirit In a fast-moving sequence of events through August, a major piece of offshore history has been made. Allseas spectacular new flagship has breezed through offshore trials and its first commercial contract. Adrian Cottrill summarises. T he most ambitious spec ALOFT AT LAST: At the fast-lift centrepiece of the operation a two-metre gap opened up at the pre-cuts in Ymes three legs. (The caisson in the foreground is not part of the lift.) AERIAL VIEW: Six pairs of lift beams worked together at five support points beneath the topsides. ON A HIGH: Allseas pre Rallying for a reset Harry Brekelmans became Shells top technology executive just as the oil and gas business was entering its worst downturn in 30 years a crisis, he says, compounded by some of the industrys own practices. Technology is crucial to recovery, he tells Russell McCulley. M ore than tw Tech Talk HIGH STANDARDS: Harry Brekelmans calls for radical change to address inefficiency and overpricing. project is under way without full consideration of the trade-off in costs incurred by the changes. It starts with the core specifications, which for an offshore project are the production vol TECH TALK DATA DELIVERY: Shell is deploying information technologies to manage highly complex projects with multinational engineering teams, such as Prelude FLNG. and use graphical reporting to manage the language barriers encountered in projects with large, multinational workforces, such as Shells ON SITE: Tackling supply chain inefficiencies has paid off on a number of major projects, including the Stones FPSO development in the US GUlf. We will see a recovery at some point, and when we do we will be ready to reap the benefits of what were doing now. Harry Brekelmans, Shell proud of our trac Spotlight GAS TECHNOLOGY Taking LNG transfer in to rougher seas The challenge of offloading LNG at the potential harsh-environment locations of the future has occupied a select band of hose developers for a good few years. Adrian Cottrill sets the scene, reports on each player in more detail (Page 1 EXPOSED SEA SOLUTION: The tandem position with carrier moored at stern of a floating liquefaction platform is the way ahead for offloading in exposed locations. This is the flexible pipe system from the OneSubsea/Nexans grouping. armour layers. Nexans has a double bellows at its heart with a vacuu SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY Rigid fightback Nevertheless, the leading exponent of the long-established approach to LNG offloading is not giving up easily. FMC Technologies expertise is based around using an articulating system of rigid steel pipe arms and swivels. FMC has held on to win both Satu and SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY STAYING WITH PIPE: FMC has the sole tandem offering based on articulating rigid pipe sections rather than flexible hose. The exposed location players Four of the five groups that have worked seriously in this field have developed a flexible hose as the heart of their propos SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY FIRST OF THE FLEXIBLES: Technip had its ALLS system ready for market by spring 2008. Technip As the first of the major companies to investigate flexible pipe for LNG, Technip had a fully developed aerial system ready for commercial take-up by spring 2008. Its Amplitude LNG SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY Trelleborg In April this year, French hose developer Trelleborg became the first company known to qualify a floating cryogenic hose. Its 20-inch bore hose gained accreditation under European standard EN1474-2. To meet these requirements, Trelleborg tested several full-scale SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY NEARING QUALIFICATION: Dunlops hose should be through all tests by the end of this year. capable of transferring up to 6000 cubic metres per hour at a working pressure of 20 bar in a cryogenic burst test on 20-inch line last year it reached 106 bar before failing. The des SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY How HiLoad could fit in the picture HOLDING TIGHT: HiLoads are being touted in conjunction with Sevans cylindrical platform (as shown), and for pairing up with a ship-shape floater. Systems for offloading LNG from cylindrical or ship-shaped platforms could couple cryohose w SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY Powering up for subsea compression SEABED COMPRESSION: An illustration of GEs 3rd generation subsea dry gas compression system with subsea power distribution. In spite of an industry lull, the business case for subsea gas compression remains strong. Russell McCulley talks t SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY POWER SOURCE: A schematic of the subsea power distribution system shows, from left to right, the main transformers with MECON dry-mate connectors on the primary side, switchgear with two breakers, two supply strings with VSD and, in this example, two Blue-C compressors. Wet SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY TEST SITE: GE conducted trials for the subsea compression and power distribution systems at the Shell-operated Ormen Lange gas processing plant in Nyhamna. the components we need to make short, medium and long step- outs. I think, in that sense, from a technology perspecti Hosted byƥ Diamond Sponsor: SPOTLIGHT: GAS TECHNOLOGY 4-7 APRIL 2017 LINKED UP: The MECON DM 145/700 subsea dry-mate connector was designed and qualified for Ormen Lange to allow power transmission at higher voltage levels. Makuhari Messe Chiba, Tokyo, Japan EXHIBIT AT THE WORLDS LARGEST GAS EVENT 5 Unlocking hydrates for future fuel While only a fraction of the Earths mindboggling amount of gas hydrates may be technically recoverable, scientists studying these ice-like hydrocarbons still see plenty of upside for the potential fuel source, as Jennifer Pallanich reports. I n a certain range of p POTENTIAL: Chunks of gas hydrate nodules recovered from a giant piston core collected in the Gulf of Mexico during a US Geological Survey cruise in 2002 in nearly 2000 feet of water. A gas hydrate reservoir starts in its worst condition and gets better. As we remove the hydrate, the reservoir permea problem is driving dissociation once the reservoir cools to a point that would slow production rates. Thermal stimulation would not necessarily be a primary production method but a component of an overall production plan. At any rate, the well would resemble a typical oil and gas production well. Th Promoted and Organized by: 24 - 27 October Rio de Janeiro Brazil BE PART OF THIS TURNING POINT FOR THE INDUSTRY IN BRAZIL Learn more about business opportunities in the leading oil & gas event in Latin America. Register online for the conference, the exhibition and the parallel events. riooilgas.co PRODUCTION OPTIMISATION Keeping tabs on Permian gas wells BHP Billiton engineers are tapping into the continuous heartbeat of their Permian basin wells with a remote well surveillance programme. Combined with Project Fix-It, the efforts have reduced downtime and increased production, as Jennifer Pal the market, and the amount of production being deferred. For instance, Mellin says, one well may not be shut in, but it may be deferring more output than another well that is completely shut in. BHP may get more value from sending a field technician to the former well rather than the one that is shu SEISMIC Engineering a future for the marine seismic business It may be hard to see beyond the current havoc being wreaked in the marine seismic sector, but that has not entirely halted the main players from seeking technology differentiation, reports Andrew McBarnet. T here can surely be no industri SHALLOW TARGETS: An artists impression of a CGG TopSeis acquisition configuration. Staying afloat At the recent ONS event in Stavanger, marine seismic contractor CGG pushed the technology envelope a little further with the launch of its latest TopSeis refinement to broadband seismic data acquisition oil companies, who are few and far between these days. Oil and gas companies seem to be moving away from long lead time, expensive exploration plays and looking for quicker returns by focusing on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and production projects. If so, the geophysical service companies will need SEISMIC Geophysicists in the service companies are used to talking to geophysicists in the oil companies, who are few and far between these days. Richard Cooper, Rock Solid Images that the seismic community somehow expects. It may be that $50 a barrel is as good as it is going to get. There must als INCOMING: A drone returns from an offshore mission. INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE & REPAIR Eyes in the sky The oil and gas industry is increasingly relying on robots like unmanned aerial vehicles for inspection. These drones can get into hard-to-reach or hazardous spots. They do not get bored. They can me DEPLOYMENT: A two-person team prepares to deploy a UAV for offshore inspection. three days with two guys, Chris Fleming, Cyberhawk operations director and general manager for the Americas, says. Earlier this year, Cyberhawk conducted the first commercial oil and gas inspection with a UAV in Qatar, a INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE & REPAIR We want things to become less reliant on humans, more automated. UAVs will be one of those tools that you use so you dont send people into harms way. drone inspections of ABS-classed assets while ABS witnesses the inspection, Bond says. The company is working with S INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE & REPAIR worked out for years, Fleming says. When we first started, it was pretty tricky to operate, but like everything, the more it gets used, the better the improvements. Some of that comes down to proper training, and some to sophisticated sensing systems. It is necessary INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE & REPAIR CLEARED FOR TAKE OFF: A two-person team prepares to launch a drone during an offshore inspection. see areas that are not typically accessed on a regular basis. Additionally, Sky-Futures is trying to move away from a system in which they carry out all the inspections Host STRATEGIES FOR THE NEW ENERGY LANDSCAPE Keynote Speaker Keynote & Opening Ceremony Speaker Rex W. Tillerson Ch h a r Chair Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Exxon Mobil Corporation WORLDS LARGEST TECHNICAL OIL & GAS CONFERENCE Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber e er r Group Chief Executive ADNOC Patrick DELIVERY: The manifold for the Julia project is lowered into the water for installation. PROJECT REVIEW: HADRIAN SOUTH & JULIA Back to the deep Two deepwater Gulf of Mexico subsea tiebacks marked a number of firsts for one supermajor. ExxonMobil officials bring Jennifer Pallanich up to date on the c CO-ORDINATION: McDermotts Derrick Barge 50 installs a Julia project foundation pile (foreground), while work continues from the drillship Maersk Viking (background). Complex installation In the case of Hadrian South, ExxonMobil carried out installation operations alongside construction vessels insta PROJECT REVIEW: HADRIAN SOUTH & JULIA sanctioned Hadrian South in 2011 and Julia in 2013. Anticipating production rates was one of the larger challenges for Julia. For Julia, we needed to flow the first well back to the rig to verify how the well would produce, Haeberle says. To achieve this, our a PROJECT REVIEW: HADRIAN SOUTH & JULIA UP AND RUNNING: Flowback of the first Julia well from the Maersk Viking to the modular capture vessel Eagle Louisiana, foreground. Were drilling the wells and getting them online so we can evaluate our next steps. Julie Upper, ExxonMobil LEAVING INGLESIDE: The J Spotlight PIPELINES HEAVY COAT: At 36 inches, Polarled is the largest diameter pipeline to be installed in water depths of 1265 metres. 44 UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGY 04 I 2016 Polarled leads the way The first pipeline on the Norwegian continental shelf to cross the Arctic Circle is in place and ready to transport gas from Norways northernmost platform to customers in Europe. Polarled team leaders tell Beate Schjolberg about the challenges and breakthroughs involved in thi SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES technology POLARLED PIPELINE ROUTE COMPACT DESIGN: Polarleds slimmed-down pipeline end manifold (PLEM) sits atop a pre-installed foundation slide plate, as seen in this illustration. We had a very experienced team and good co-operation with the suppliers. Haakon Ivarjord, Statoi SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES technology POLARLED Location: 482 kilometres from Aasta Hansteen, Norwegian Sea, to Nyhamna Size/capacity: 36 inches, 70 million cubic metres of gas per day Maximum size: 1265 metres Owners: Statoil, Petoro, OMV, Shell, Total, Dea Norge, ConocoPhillips, Edison, Maersk Oil, Engie SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES with the suppliers, and together they achieved a considerable simplification of the concept, mainly during the FEED phase but also afterwards, says Haakon Ivarjord, Statoils project director for the Polarled development project. We eliminated a sizeable structure by keeping the ... and his spirit hovered over the waters SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES PROCESS: A pipe-in-pipe insertion operation under way at ITPs manufacturing facility in Ranville, France. Taking pipe-in-pipe to new depths The thermal benefits of pipe-in-pipe are well known, but installation challenges have so far limited how deep the technology can go. Pipeli SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES two minutes. The method is considerably faster than welding both inner and outer pipes, says Geertsen. For the installation vessel, its close to installing a single pipe. They only have one weld to do per joint. ITPs deepest installation of its PiP system was for Tullow Oil off SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES Upset ends Those advantages mean little if a subsea development is too deep to take advantage of PiP technology, either because the installation is deemed too expensive or technically infeasible. Recently, ITP teamed up with Total and tubular manufacturer Vallourec to examine h SPOTLIGHT: PIPLINES load during deepwater pipelay operations. The weight penalty over that short field joint location in one 48-metre joint is minimal, so we can double the reach. We can go from 2000 to 4000 metres of water, he says. Enabling technology The study looked at a range of pipe diameters SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES Making ends meet 54 tracks that information, and can be deployed to monitor welding details only or aggregate data from all points in the fabrication and installation process. The system works in conjunction with measurement tools such as CleverScan, which measures the extremity SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES External Mat (Rubber-based Blocks) Heating System (Tracing cables in Red) Monitoring System (Distributed temperature sensing) cables in Blue) Installation Aids (Steel Wire Rope) HEAT SOURCE: A rendering shows the four main subsystems in Technips ETH Blanket design. The company SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES paraffin plug remediation more predictable and economical than current intervention techniques, says Antoine Marret, project manager for the ETH Blanket programme at Forsys Subsea. There are several ways of dealing with hydrate plugs in subsea flowlines, but from experience wev SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES SNUG FIT: The ETH Blanket is designed to transfer heat to pipes that are partially or completely buried. The rubber material acts as both a support structure and insulation. Risk-based design Technip launched a fast-track qualification programme to develop the ETH Blanket and co SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES CHILLED OUT: Tests in Houston in 2010 involving liquid nitrogen assessed the efficacy and durability of the pipe-in-pipe insulation. Cold transfer Rising demand for liquefied natural gas drives the need to transport the gas from the source to the markets. A little over a decade SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES 9Ni or 36Ni Radiant Barrier Concrete Weight Coating Carbon Steel with FBE Coating Insulation HEAVY COAT: This cryogenic pipe-in-pipeline configuration features a radiant barrier and a concrete layer. If the specific gravity of the subsea LNG/LPG pipe-in-pipe is under about 1.1, SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES LEAK SIMULATION: Fluor tested an external leak in a subsea application of the pipe-in-pipe configuration where water was introduced into the Aerogel-insulated annulus via an external pipe. a way that there is a low risk of having issue of spills. The five-day pilot test, which SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES INSIDE VIEW: Sonomatics ROViT is a remotely operated vehicle-deployed tool used to carry out subsea inspection, including dynamic response spectroscopy corrosion mapping. Below shows an example of a corrosion mapping scan. Seeing through steel Modern subsea pipeline inspection b 62 PLUG DETECTOR: Tracercos new Explorer technology identifies blockages in pipelines, including stuck pigs. flight diffraction, is sort of the opposite in principle, as the sound wave in this technique is shot out at an angle. This technique is often used for crack detection during inspection of we SPOTLIGHT: PIPELINES CHECKS: Pipeline workers being trained to install cathodic protection systems at a training field in US. In the line of duty About 500,000 miles of transmission and gathering pipelines stretch across the US. While many are good condition, concerns remain about the structural int leaky seals, issues you would expect from newer pipelines. You get a blast of those in the first few years, and then it goes away, then there are increasing incidents as they get older, he adds. Weimer points out that not all companies with new pipelines have problems. We need to look at what those Upstream Technology magazine 2016 Upstream Technology is the oil and gas magazine covering the global development and application of critical technologies, both in an off shore and onshore context. With a content mix that appeals to specialists and general management alike, Upstream Technology uphol INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE & REPAIR Point and troubleshoot 66 A mid fierce competition and sinking oil prices, Noble Drilling cast about for ways to better support its rigs and increase uptime levels. Worldwide maintenance director Ron Swan saw an opportunity to improve uptime by using new communicatio connection. From the rig to shore, it is encrypted and compressed so we can send it through the smaller pipelines, Ripley explains. In addition to the imagery, the troubleshooting department has direct access to data log files on the rigs. Were mostly tapping into data thats already sitting on the r INSPECTION, MAINTENANCE & REPAIR hundreds of tags. Ripley was able to read the tag legends in the resulting high-resolution image and help troubleshoot that particular problem within minutes, for a job that ordinarily would have taken hours. It really reduces the amount of time to give beneficial i majority of Noble Drillings down time. Those same systems still account for most of the down time, although the percentage has dropped from 10 to 4. The events are still the same but we fix them quicker, Swan says. Today, the first thing they do is pick up the cameras. After every troubleshooting ti Bits Bytes CT SCANNER: Weatherford Labs performed dual-energy CT scanning using medical-grade scanning equipment. CORE SAMPLES: From the Chicxulub Crater. Preserving prehistory W eatherford Labs is carrying out dual-energy computerised tomography (CT) scanning of a core recovered from a crater in th The future energy mix will consist of many solutions. Bjorn Otto Sverdrup, Statoil Amateur hour is over. There needs to be a reconfiguration of the (drilling) sector. Consolidation needs to happen as the market would be better served by a smaller number of healthy drilling companies and this will al Sheffield steel Sheffield Forgemasters International (SFIL) has built what the UK company claims is the largest ever forged subsea emergency repair clamp for use on the 1224-kilometre Nord Stream gas pipeline. The clamp, designed by Oil States Industries in Houston, will provide risk mitigation in t Halliburtons Boots & Coots Services business has developed the Global Rapid Intervention Package (GRIP), a new suite of intervention services featuring an air- mobile capping stack for subsea well control events. Intended to help reduce costs and deployment time for incidents, GRIP provides well pla NEXT EDITION OF SPOTLIGHT Life of Field The complexity of todays upstream projects requires operators to adopt an all-encompassing outlook, using technology to plan for all the stages of a developments life, design contingencies for unanticipated events and minimise down time. Condition monitoring i 6SRQVRU *ROG