Solution
Centre

In a collaboration between TRAC Oil & Gas and ToolTec, this project developed a cleaning and inspection tool (Trac-Tec Tool) that can be remotely deployed from the platform, to clean and inspect various sizes and configurations of caissons and conductors in the area immediately above and below sea level, or 'splash zone'.

Typically, inspections are carried out by divers from a diving support vessels (DSVs) or remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) deployed from the platform or a vessel. This can be challenging due to the sea state and proximity to the jacket structure, not to mention the use of support vessels being expensive. This new technology delivers a solution that removes the need for divers, ROVs and DSVs. Phase one that focussed on the development of the tool, with the second phase proving the concept via field trial.

Industry Value

The technology has the potential to reduce inspection costs by 50%, while improving safety, quality and efficiency.

Typical annual workscopes for an individual platforms splash zone inspection range from £300,000 to £3 million, based on various riser, structural and pipeline schedules, and using ROVs/divers. By using the TracTec Tool, the cost to carry out similar workscopes are in the region of £15,000 - £150,000, providing a 95% cost saving.

The OGTC has worked in partnership with WellSet AS to investigate the feasibility of using magnetic rheology in well cementing.

Magnetic particles are blended into cement: the application of a magnetic field aligns particles to enhance cement displacement efficiency and immunity to gravitational migration, potentially leading to more accurate cement placement and better cement integrity for water shut-off as well as the potential to set shorter abandonment plugs. Traditionally, gravitational pulls cause cement to slump and move away from the location it was intended to act as a barrier.

Magneto-rheological blended cement (MRBC) is an innovative material that requires the transmission of an electromagnetic field downhole through carbon steel casing.

Industry Value

Phase one of the project was established to prove the concept through a feasibility study and sought to examine:
- What are the optimal MRBC blend formulations for annulus barrier plugs?
- How can an electromagnetic (EM) field be effectively transmitted through carbon steel casing?
- What are the electrical requirements for the electromagnetic fields?
- How can we maximise MRBC displacement efficiency?

Improving the placement of cement in the annulus and preventing repeat cement jobs could save around one days rig time for each application. Based on approximately 10 wells per year, this could save £4 million annually.

The failure of rock during oil and gas extraction is a major problem. Sand particles under the flows required to extract hydrocarbons can cause blockages in pumping equipment, reducing extraction efficiency shortening equipment life, and therefore increasing operational costs.

Glass Technology Services (GTS) has been working in the field of soluble glasses for many years. They are currently mainly used in the biomedical sector for the controlled release of minerals and nutrients to stimulate bone and tissue regeneration. Similar glasses have potential for the modification of rocks and cements in the oil and gas industry.

The OGTC has worked with GTS to identify glass products that have the potential to be deployed in oil and gas wells to enhance wellbore stability. These soluble glass materials react with fluids and formation to consolidate rock formations either allowing or preventing the flow of formation fluids.

Industry Value

Glass solutions can be used to stabilise sandstones whilst retaining permeability and sealing sandstone.

The Oil and Gas Authority estimates the average cost of a development well to be £23 million with NPT accounting for approximately 25% (£5.75 million) of these costs for platform wells, with equipment and casing, and cement and mud accounting for a further 18% of well costs.

Assuming the application of soluble glass treatment could save 10-20% of this time the savings per deployment in NPT alone will be in the region of £0.5-1 million per well. There would also be associated savings from reduced rig, equipment and cementing costs (approx. £0.8 million, at 20% saving).

56 development wells were completed in 2017 and with the OGA estimating that 2,000-3,000 new wells are needed to meet MER UK requirements, 120-150 new wells will be required per year for the next 15-20 years, giving a minimum saving of over £60 million per year.

Other potential applications of soluble glass treatment are aimed at reducing production losses in existing wells through prevention of sand and water production. The 2018 OGA Insights Report states that 7% of production losses (2.3 mmboe) are due to sand and water production and that intervention is only successful in 50% of cases. Assuming that this technology could overcome these unsuccessful interventions caused by sand and water, this technology has potential to significantly increase this success rate with the potential to extract oil worth approximately £50 million per year (Assumes 1.15 mmboe restored at $56/bbl and 1GBP-1.3USD).

EC-OG's ground-breaking turbine system harnesses energy within ocean currents to produce autonomous electrical power for multiple applications - including subsea wells. The project with the OGTC provided support to complete FEED work for a North Sea field trial, focused on optimising the deployment and de-risking the installation and operational phases. By successfully integrating renewable energy technologies in to the production process, this delivers a low carbon source of power while reducing overall operating cost.

Industry Value

The SPH lowers the lifecycle cost of subsea fields, with the potential to deliver £200 million in savings for the UKCS - while at the same time reducing carbon footprint.

The OGTC funded a project with Deepwater Oil Tools to develop, test and certify ArticuLock - a special articulated joint within the drillpip running string. This is used when deploying subsea equipment through the drilling rig during well construction. The technology enables drilling operations in rough weather conditions, reducing waiting on weather time, which is a multi-million pound issue annually to the drilling industry.

Industry Value

Approximately 25% of subsea wells could benefit from this technology, increasing the operating weather window by up to 35% - resulting in multi-million pound savings.

3-SCI Ltd conducted a 'TELOS' (Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational and Scheduling) feasibility study.

Completed over a 14-week period, it explored a new method of removing subsea metallic structures via an accelerated corrosion technique, which can cut or fully dissolve steel. This would have both cost and environmental benefits compared to traditional methods, where steel is either left subsea or returned to shore.

This technology has the potential to increase the rate at which steel is currently eliminated, enabling a reduction in time and cost efficiency.

Industry Value

The removal, long-term surveillance and potential intervention associated with steel structures remaining subsea post-decommissioning is a significant cost to industry.

Workshop data suggest that C-Beaver tools could dissolve steel at the rate of ~100 Kg per MW-hr (approximately 10 watts eliminating 1 gram of steel per hour).

For example:
Applying 10 kwatt to 100 feet of 38lb/foot steel tubular using the C-Beaver method could reduce it to its corrosion product within two months.

A 6 MWatt capacity offshore wind turbine (assumed creating average power at approximately 25% of capacity, could help eliminate steel at the rate of approximately 1000 tons per year.

Ardent has designed a new external buoyancy system to recover offshore jackets, as an alternative to more costly heavy lift vessels (HVL) - potentially reducing cost by 35%. Optimising the low draught featured within the design, the Ardent system allows delivery and offload at any suitable quayside facility without recourse to dredging and intermediate barge transfer.

This follows the ground-breaking parbuckling and refloating of the shipwreaked Costa Concordia cruise liner undertaken off the coast of Italy, by Ardent. The lessons learnt from that operation were fundamental in this design work.

Industry Value

This step-change in approach provides flexibility, is safe and easy to deploy and ultimately saves up to 35% in cost vs HLV methods - worth up to £460 million to the UKCS. This new technology also has the potential to create new jobs for the industry, opening up UK yards for large/heavy jackets.

Infinity has developed a product that could diffuse "ticking time bombs" on platforms, saving UK operators more than £320million.

Actutors are automated devices used to open and close valves - they contain huge amounts of potential energy. If they break, the powerful springs inside them can eject components at high velocity which undoubtably can cause fatal injuries and damage equipement.

The Failforce Actuator Safety Gauntlet is akin to a bullet proof bag, that can be fitter over actuators which have fallen into poor condition offshore, thus making them safe.

The actuator gauntlet is made of layers of Kelvar, inside a water-tight, UV-resistant bag. It is intended for single use, but the material could be recycled (depending on the level of damage cause by an actuator blowout).

Industry Value

There are approximately 600 actuators on board each offshore installation, with 261 operational assets in the UKCS - this is potentially more than 156,500 actuators in the UKCS alone.
The estimated total cost to replace all actuators would be in excess of £1.4 billion. Even if only 25% of all actuators needed to be replaced, that would cost £368 million. The cost of installing the Failforce Actuator Safety Gauntlet to those 25% would cost £39 million - a saving of approximately £329 million across the UKCS.
90% cheaper than replacement, with a potential to add >£300million to the UKCS.

At present, the industry cannot visualise data across the full asset integrity lifecycle, current digital worker technology relies on traditional methods. Relating digital data to a physical plant location is a manual and subjective activity, which leads to lost time, high costs, potential errors and inconsistencies.

Global Design Innovation (GDi) has developed the latest later scanning and photogrammetry technology, which has the potential to transform the entire asset integrity management process.

The development of a revolutionary handheld later scanner which will rapidly obtain accurate inspection data, automatically detect and categorise defects, and generate virtual inspection reports will enable engineers to manipulate and manage information.

Industry Value

This technology improves safety, integrity and asset value, saving more than £2 million per platform, per year - £500 million annually on the UKCS.

Welded subsea pipeline systems are used in most developments. Industry needs more time and cost-effective alternatives to improve economics and unlock reserves.

The Cortez Subsea patented Modular Pipelay System (MPS™) enables Zap-Lok™ and other mechanically connected pipe to be laid from a standard DP2 vessel. This flexible pipelay is adjustable in both width and length, and has no heat affected zones, avoiding the need for welding. The GMC Intelligently Connected Pipe (ICP™) is designed for deep water and ultra deep water (including pre/post-salt projects).

The ICP™ offers faster make-up due to pre-manufactured components being transported to the field as completed pipe joints. Integrity is also increased using high-strength, fatigue and corrosion-resistant connections.

Industry Value

With faster make-up and improved integrity, this technology has the potential to reduce overall costs by between 25-45%.

The OGTC is supporting Interwell's development of a new wellbore barrier for the plug and abandonment of a well. The thermite plug is designed to create a high temperature chemical reaction in the wellbore. It creates a molten metal plug that melts the adjacent casing strings and, on solidification, fuses to the rock. This creates a metallic barrier in the wellbore and is an alternative to conventional cement.

Industry Value

This has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of plug and abandonment, saving approximately 10-14 days per well. This equates to £200,000 - £400,000 per well, per day, or £3.6 million per well overall.

By applying this approach to just 10% of the projected 1,400 wells to be abandoned over the next 10 years, could save the UKCS around £0.5 billion.

Lateral wave movements cause impact on caissons, risers and conductors, and their supporting steelwork. This causes fatigue and fretting damage, which is both costly and dangerous.

Existing shim-type solutions can be costly and, in some cases, unreliable, require replacement after a short period of time. The OGTC supported Aquaterra to develop new technology aimed at stabilising offshore caissons, risers and conductors, to reduce movement, increase guide stability and moderate vibrations - in the long-term extending their operational life.

The initial phase of the project developed and tested a urethane-based two component polyurethane system (including installation tests on a conductor restraint mock-up) that doesn't require specialist equipment to install and cure at low temperatures.

Industry Value

A typical shim programme costs approximately £50,000 per conductor. Using this system would result in 80% cost savings, due to the materials used, ease of installation and efficient preparation and deployment.

Process vessel inspection is a major cause of production downtime and incurs significant cost to industry. The OGTC collaborated with Total to support the field trial of three non-intrusive inspection (NII) technologies as an alternative inspection method.

Total identified two process pressure vessels on its Elgin Franklin platform that were scheduled for traditional intrusive inspection. However in advance of this, they agreed to a NII field trial being carried out while the vessels were online and operational, allowing the results of both approaches to be compared and verified.

Three technology providers - Sonomatic, Eddyfi and MISTRAS - were selected to conduct the field trials, and deployed a range of ultrasonic corrosion mapping and time of flight diffraction solutions.

Each company was given the brief to develop a Non-Intrusive Inspection plan using industry standard DNV Recommended Practice G103. The aim of this was to meet the requirements of a full intrusive inspection w

Industry Value

Overall, the value of non-intrusive inspections (NII) to the industry has been calculated to be in the region of £242 million per annum. This project helps leverage this cost saving by providing an attractive technology which further enables the adoption of NII.

Process vessel inspection is a major cause of production downtime and incurs significant cost to industry. The OGTC collaborated with Total to support the field trial of three non-intrusive inspection (NII) technologies as an alternative inspection method.

Total identified two process pressure vessels on its Elgin Franklin platform that were scheduled for traditional intrusive inspection. However in advance of this, they agreed to a NII field trial being carried out while the vessels were online and operational, allowing the results of both approaches to be compared and verified.

Three technology providers - MISTRAS, Eddyfi and Sonomatic - were selected to conduct the field trials, and deployed a range of ultrasonic corrosion mapping and time of flight diffraction solutions.

Each company was given the brief to develop a Non-Intrusive Inspection plan using industry standard DNV Recommended Practice G103. The aim of this was to meet the requirements of a full intrusive inspection wi

Industry Value

Overall, the value of non-intrusive inspections (NII) to the industry has been calculated to be in the region of £242 million per annum. This project helps leverage this cost saving by providing an attractive technology which further enables the adoption of NII.

Process vessel inspection is a major cause of production downtime and incurs significant cost to industry. The OGTC collaborated with Total to support the field trial of three non-intrusive inspection (NII) technologies as an alternative inspection method. Total identified two process pressure vessels on its Elgin Franklin platform that were scheduled for traditional intrusive inspection. However in advance of this, they agreed to a NII field trial being carried out while the vessels were online and operational, allowing the results of both approaches to be compared and verified. Three technology providers were selected to conduct the field trials, and deployed a range of ultrasonic corrosion mapping and time of flight diffraction solutions. Each company was given the brief to develop a Non-Intrusive Inspection plan using industry standard DNV Recommended Practice G103. The aim of this was to meet the requirements of a full intrusive inspection without vessel entry.

Industry Value

Overall, the value of non-intrusive inspections (NII) to the industry has been calculated to be in the region of £242 million per annum. This project helps leverage this cost saving by providing an attractive technology which further enables the adoption of NII.

The OGTC supported Tendeka to undertake a field trial of their PulseEight technology, onshore in a gas storage well.

PulseEight is a wireless, intelligent completion technology, capable of bi-directional communication between the surface and downhole. It uses a unique pressure pulse telemetry suitable for multi-phase fluid environments, to allow wireless communication between the wellhead and downhole. Because this eliminates control lines, it is easy to install and therefore a cost-effective solution.

Industry Value

Using this technology allows operators to extend the life of existing assets, as well as developing new fields more effectively, reducing the need for intrusive well intervention work.

It reduces the need for at least one wireline intervention per year on a well. For every 25 wells the system is deployed on, the industry would save around £4 million per annum.

A field trial of the Permasense (now Emerson Rosemount) wireless wall thickness measurement system was undertaken on the Chevron Alba Northern Platform. The technology consists of a non-intrusive, wireless sensor which provides continuous measurement of pipework wall thickness, with metal loss detection, for managing asset integrity. Each sensor can route the data it collects back to the gateway and has a battery life of up to nine years, which minimises maintenance requirements.

The trial focussed on the water injection system and consisted of eight ET210 sensors installed on a number of key bends (at the 6 o'clock position) and at straight sections of pipework, recording over a period of six months.

Industry Value

The Permasense wireless wall thickness monitoring system has the potential to save the industry >85% over traditional wall thickness measuring methods. The overall cost saving per annum for one single monitoring location would be in the region of £3,500, with an annual cost saving to the UKCS of £1 million.

Sensors can be fitted on insulated and uninsulated equipment. When insulated, the sensors are fitted underneath insulation, which has the potential to significantly reduce costs: insulation does not require to be stripped and reapplied every time an inspection is required; plus the sensors are low power with up to nine years battery life, minimising maintenance throughout operations.

The OGTC supported Oilfield Innovations' onshore trial for enabling new rigless well plug and abandonment technology.

Traditionally, abandonment of oil and gas wells is an expensive process using a rig to pull the tubing (reversing the installation process), which then provides unobstructed casing space for cementation opportunities.

New technology developed by Oilfield Innovation removes a window of approximately 100ft of completion tubing (from above the production packer) to allow access to the production casing for logging and barrier placement, without the need to bring in a rig to recover the entire completion string. Using a piston/hydraulic force to compact the tubing, the piston can also clean casing surfaces during compaction to provide an unobstructed casing space suitable for cement bond logging and placement of a cement plug.

Industry Value

Rigless abandonment offers savings of up to £4 million per well - based on 10% of the 1,400 UKCS wells. This could save the UKCS £50 million per year.

The OGTC worked with the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) on a digital transformation project which aimed to develop a data sharing, collaborative system, along with optimisation algorithms, to improve the efficiency and use of supply vessels.

The transportation of equipment by boat accounts for almost 10% of £10bn total operating costs in the UKCS. By increasing utilisation through the use of digital technology and insights from data, there is an opportunity to significantly reduce the cost of marine logistic operations.

A feasibility study was undertaken to look at potential efficiencies within the process. Key to this was determining the drivers that could lead to greater vessel logistics coordination, as well as understanding the constraints that determine the number of vessel trips from harbour to offshore facilities (both static and mobile).

Industry Value

Similar approaches and systems have been developed in other industries to optimise logistics. There is potential to reduce marine vessel trips, therefore reducing costs. In addition to this, non-productive time (NPT) could also be significantly reduced.

Savings in the order of 20-25% in vessel days could be achieved if there are no operational restrictions. Vessel sharing could realise further savings of 5-10%.

Modelling indicated that around 50% of the vessel trips would need to be shared between operators. This is significantly higher than the current 13% observed.

This project, supporting Cults Telecom Services Limited, was established to demonstrate the capability of a low-power, wide-area network (LoRaWAN) to provide connectivity, test information and a hands-on demonstration that an Internet of Things (IoT) - transferring data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction - is applicable in offshore environments is feasible.

In particular, the project will demonstrate whether LoRaWAN technology has viability in an industrial offshore setting (on the drill rig) by performing a site survey for signal coverage above deck.

Industry Value

LoRa potentially replaces other more expensive communications technologies at a lower cost. Alternatively it can be retrofit to enhance existing systems. This is an enabling technology that could reduce the cost of communication, as well as introducing competition to the market.

Typical well operations utilise multiple applications and various modes of communication across operator, rig contractors and service company interfaces. These systems have little cross-linkage and lack data sharing. Data requires manual duplication and valuable lessons learnt can be lost. In addition to this, the process is very time consuming. All of this combined results in increased costs and risk.

In order to transform well planning, The OGTC supported a project which looks at well design/abandonment application with continuous data flow through planning and operations, with the ability to analyse lessons learned using artificial intelligence (AI).

Industry Value

Evoilve's COLLAB software provides a focussed and centralised arena for the engineer to streamline well planning and operation by reducing administrative burdens associated with back to back, high paced, varied well operations so that time can be better spent engineering solutions. Focussing around the well programme and taking the whiteboard to the web, the goal of COLLAB is to transform well planning and reporting by embracing the digital transformation that has swept other industrial sectors, bridging cross communication gaps and providing a central platform for data input.

Fewer cost overruns, fewer failures during execution and the ability to continue learning in a structured and integrated manner could transform the industy.

An assumption of saving six people planning for six months equates to 12 man months. Across 10 wells operations a year, this could have an annual saving of £876,000.

Access to well data is key for making informed integrity and abandonment decisions. With over 600 wells currently shut-in across the UKCS due to well management issues, this is a key challenge and opportunity for the mature North Sea basin.

SolaSense's hand-held technology harnesses similar technology deployed in the telecoms industry. The hand-held data acquisition system provides a portable, processing software and visualisation interface for delivering near real time interpretation of DAS/DTS data at the rig site. This allows well features to be readily recognised and evaluated, avoiding shut-in wells and minimising lost production.

Phase one of The OGTC's support of the project is to develop two key pieces of distributed fibre optic sensing (DFOS) software:
- DAS data decimator and processor
- Data visualisation and interpretation that will encompass both DTS and DAS information

Industry Value

With 43% of shut-in wells due to integrity issues, applying this technology could improve well surveillance by driving down the cost of fibre operations.

The value of this technology to the UKCS is estimated at >£135 million per year. This is based on three areas of application (source: OGA) covering:
- A 1% reduction in production losses associated with issues that can be detected and address with DFOS (£17 million per annum)
- Re-instatement of 1% of the current ~600 shut-in UKCS wells (£30 million per annum)
- An £88 million annual saving in plug and abandonment intervention costs through improved leak path identification and barrier location selection

OGTC supported BHGE to evaluate a technology that delivers cement logging through multiple casing strings, an advancement on existing solutions which can only deliver logging behind one casing or tubular. A means of inspecting the quality and quantity of cement in the annulus behind casing does not currently exist without removing the wellbore tubing. If it were possible to deploy a tool to inspect the casing annulus cement from within the tubing, additional costs could be avoided and the potential for thru-tubing and rigless abandonments could be realised.

The aim was to evaluate a number of potential delivery models and resulted in a four month feasibility study of BHGE's nXis multi-nodal, thru-tubing inspection system. nXis is composed of neutron, x(y)-ray, electromagnetic and ultrasonic inspection techniques. This project would provide proof of concept, showing that combining the techniques would allow defect detection and live, in-situ, 3D visualisation of wellbore defects.

Industry Value

By eliminating the requirement to removing tubing, the industry could benefit from significant cost savings by unlocking rigless abandonment opportunities.

This technology has the potential to deliver industry savings between £105-£550 million, based on analysis of the UKCS P&A counts up to 2025 - assuming that between 10-50% of the subsea well could be inspected to deliver thru-tubing abandonments.

With +/- 1,400 wells in the UKCS to be abandoned over the next ten years, The OGTC has supported a project with Sudelac to examine methods to optimise plug and abandonment techniques, whilst reducing cost.

Sudelac's technology concept is the creation of a tool that can dimple tubulars to improve centralisation of the tubing inside the casing, improving tubular stand-off and optimise the annular area for cementing.

The aim of the project was to perform FEA (finite element analysis) modelling of various configurations a new device (TubeFORMER) designed to dimple tubulars and centralise completion tubulars in a casing string. The ability to do this would allow the tubing to be cemented in place and eliminate the need to recover completion tubulars during the well abandonment process.

This work was carried out at the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) at Glasgow University, and consisted of computational modelling of the forces and pressures needed to achieve this.

Industry Value

If this technology were successfully developed and implemented, it could save between two and five days per abandonment operation. At a rig rate of approximately £200,000 per day, there is the potential to save between £400,000 and £1 million per well.

Studies into tubing deformation show it has potential to eliminate tubular removal and optimise P&A techniques, saving up to £1m per well.

The Subsea Deployment System (SDS) is a submersible buoyancy device which can be used to recover spool pieces, mattresses and manifolds, at a lesser cost than expensive vessels - for example anchor handling.

A feasibility study was conducted by a University of Aberdeen MSc student, providing an initial concept - however further work is required to complete the full technical assessment, understand the decommissioning market and potential commercialisation of the system.

Industry Value

High level feasibility study conducted on subsea buoyancy basket estimates a potential cost saving of 13%, based on 9 day duration.

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Industry Value

New technologies and approaches are critical to unlocking the potential of marginal field developments. Access to suitable, low carbon energy for powering fields is key, harnessing the North Sea's wealth of renewable energy resources. Understanding and mapping these resources to meet specific asset, field or reservoir location is vital, but hasn't been available previously.

Aquaterra's RADMAPP mapping system is a risk-based decision tool, which identifies key renewable resources across the UKCS, including wind, wave, tidal and solar.

These resources are mapped to known marginal fields, identifying natural power source at location. The system can be customised to model bespoke criteria, including optimal natural resource for each well or area. A range of energy solutions including tie-backs, windfarms and cables from shore are then identified and expanded to consider subsurface characteristics, logistics and overall field development economics.

Industry Value

By replacing umbilical power with alternative energy sources the industry can harness renewable power to reduce offshore emissions. This can save around £2 million in capital expenditure per deployment, or £145 million if applied to 20% of UKCS marginal developments.

The study was to assess current decommissioning practices to identify opportunities to optimise delivery of the decommissioning scope. Within the various functional elements that comprise the life cycle of decommissioning. The key strategic question considered in this report is where and how might this innovation be most effective when deployed as new technology. That is, where OGTC should focus in order to generate the maximum value.

It concluded that the 35% cost reduction target as set by the OGA is achievable and that the savings would be in 2 areas:

Methods innovation - £11.15BN opportunity
Technology Innovation - £9.55BN opportunity (£6.74BN in wells)

Industry Value

The purpose of this study was to consider the decommissioning lifecycle and assess against the various stages of the life-cycle, where there are opportunities to reduce cost. In addition an assessment of the magnitude of potential savings were made.