Despite the doom and gloom surrounding the subsea industry, a new start-up company surfaced at OTC.

Houston-based UNDERWATER INTEGRITY SOLUTIONS (UIS) will focus on subsea integrity, production assurance and life extension for subsea fields.

HitecVision, the leading European private equity oil and gas investor, has committed $150mn of equity to finance the build-up of the company.

UIS has been established by five well-known subsea industry leaders with over 140 years’ combined global experience. UIS will acquire businesses - and form strategic partnerships - to build an independent and global company solely focused on integrity and production assurance ‘with the aim of maximizing the operators’ financial return on their subsea assets over their operational life.’

Bill Boyle, ceo of UIS, said, ‘UIS is launching at a time when the trend for operations in deeper water and in more hostile environments is continuing. There are about 5,000 operational subsea wells around the world with almost 7,000 predicted by 2020.’

Subsea global annual operating expenditure is currently around $10bn and is expected to grow strongly over the course of the next few years.

Boyle added, ‘Our independence, global presence and sole focus on subsea integrity and assurance will be our competitive edge, differentiating UIS from what is currently being offered in the marketplace.’

UIS will have a leadership team on both sides of the Atlantic. In the Houston HQ, Boyle will work alongside coo Guido Bressani and cfo Mark Webster, while in Aberdeen, coo Neill Kelly and cto Geoff Fisher will take the reins.

HAYWARD TYLER signed a production alliance with FMC Technologies at OTC, which will see it manufacture permanent magnet motors for use in FMC’s 3.2MW subsea pump systems.

The deal includes an initial $2mn commitment by FMC towards the on-going development of HT’s Luton plant in the UK.

The company has also signed a $1.25mn LOI for the latest order for four submersible motors for use in the Baram field in the Malaysian gulf as a result of HT’s on-going agreement with Eureka and existing relationship with Petronas.

EXPRO has scooped a key contract offshore Canada with Statoil in the Flemish Pass Basin. The initial four-year contract is valued at $45mn with options for two 1-year extensions.

The contract covers the provision of surface well testing and subsea safety systems, drillstem testing tools, tubing conveyed perforation, downhole sampling and on-site chemistry services.

Earlier this year, Expro announced a $200mn contract with the big Norwegian operator providing fully integrated well testing and sampling services on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

FMC has chosen DNV GL to perform independent third party verification of a hpht subsea completion, production and workover system.

FMC is running this project as a joint industry program (JIP) with Anadarko, BP, Conoco Phillips, and Shell, to aim at product standardisation and cost efficiency.

Producing oil and gas from deepwater reservoirs with pressures of up to 20Kpsi and temperatures of 350°F at the mudline has for years been the objective of taskforces of the best and brightest engineers within many of the oil majors’ organisations.

The establishment of the JIP led by FMC shows an industry that is now pragmatically collaborating as a response to increasing costs and a falling oil price.

Petrobras has already reached oil output of more than 800,000b/d in the PRE-SALT off Brazil, a feat for which the company was handed the Distinguished Achievement Award gong at OTC 2015.

At a lunch presentation, E&P director Solange Guedes emphasised the financial viability of the pre-salt with a production cost of $9/bbl.

‘If we consider that two production units are not yet producing at their total capacity, the production cost will be even lower. Our operational efficiency of around 92% has contributed significantly to our reaching these low costs,’ Ms Guedes said.

Average oil production in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin is now more than 25,000b/d. Five wells each produce over 30,000b/d. The Sapinhoá and Lula fields have wells whose average output may reach 40,000b/d.

‘These figures will certainly contribute to a reduction in the number of wells in our future pre-salt projects, which will be a major benefit to cost reduction,’ she said.

There are now 13 production units in the pre-salt, including the most recently installed fpso Cidade de São Vicente, which is undertaking an extended well test in the Cessão Onerosa area.

From Houston (BN): PETROBRAS’ pre-salt output keeps rising. Brazil’s state-controlled oil company reported that on April 11 production from the Santos and Campos basins reached 800,000 b/d. The single-day record was set with 39 production wells, 20 in the Santos Basin and 19 in the Campos. Nearly two-thirds of the total (511,000 b/d) came from wells in the Santos. Key to setting a new high in pre-salt production was start-up of a dynamic producer platform-ship in the Buzios field and start-up of platform P-20 in the Marlim field.

The requirement for better CONDITION MONITORING of subsea pipes, risers and flowlines to avoid potential failures and the dreaded threat of downtime came under the spotlight at OTC.

There are plenty of opportunities in particular for better monitoring of subsea risers. According to BPP-TECH’s Tony Kenyon, there will be an inventory of between 1,950 and 3,090 subsea flexible risers between 2014 and 2021.

Kenyon outlined his company’s efforts to develop an in situ radiographic inspection solution for non-destructive examination of subsea flexible risers. The Digital Radiographic Inspection of Flexible Risers Tool (DRIFT) is initially being used by Subsea 7 to inspect risers while in operation.

DRIFT is appropriate for at least three-quarters of the above forecast number of subsea risers, he said.

Dr. Vineet Jha of GE Oil & Gas Wellstream, highlighted that the use of composite reinforcement on unbonded flexible pipe for optimised hybrid designs could have major weight-saving benefits.

‘In deepwater you could save up to 70% in buoyancy requirements,’ which would also naturally reduce costs in deepwater applications as a result.

A project aimed at improving FLOW MEASUREMENT in deepwater projects is paying dividends, delegates at OTC heard.

The project, sponsored by research partnership RPSEA, is looking at technologies including a sampling system, subsea sensor and a subsea clamp-on meter.

Chip Letton of Letton-Hall Group said seven independent smaller projects have been brought together under one umbrella to address gaps in deepwater flow measurement.

‘The deeper you get everything gets bigger, not only the impact of the problems but the cost to the environment, the cost to the stakeholders,’ Letton said. ‘Deeper water is just more difficult. Measurement is really the only way to understand this. You have really got to have some instruments to be able to understand what is happening on the sea floor.’

JIP partners including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, GE, Statoil and Total provided funding and expertise to the project.

Letton stressed the importance of the work saying that a meter that was not working accurately could fluctuate with readings as much as 2% higher or lower than they should be and that that could prove “catastrophic” for somebody, particularly in massive deepwater wells.

The JIP has investigated a means of being able to clamp a meter on the outside of a pipeline and use electromagnetic measurements to measure what is flowing through the pipe.

Work is also being done to check for subsea kicks by monitoring small changes in the mud density at the bottom of the mudline in wells.

‘RPSEA and the Department of Energy gave us the bulk of our funding. For those of you who are US taxpayers and get disgusted at how you’re money is being spent, this is a good use of your money. It is a good model and worked really well,’ he said.

Offshore