Gulf of Mexico. Wild Well Control personnel successfully controlled a large platform fire and saved the drilling unit from total loss.
Wild wells
Published: 15 September, 2011
With oil exploration becoming increasingly complex the approach towards safety is taking a decidedly holistic feel, as Jose Sanchez found out when he interviewed Graham Berry of Wild Well Control, on the eve of Offshore Europe 2011.
A company whose roots go back to the macho heydays of Red Adair, when ‘real’ men pitted themselves against raging fires in far-flung places, Houston-headquartered Wild Well Control is a very different company today. Reflecting the values of the modern energy industry means that Wild Well Control is not just about reacting and dealing with disasters (which it still does) but about preventing them. The oil-spattered macho firefighters of 1990s Kuwait have largely been replaced by circa 550 professional engineers with plenty of drilling expertise.
Graham Berry, Director of International Business Development for Wild Well Control, explains how much of the company’s work revolves around non-emergency projects involving the use of sophisticated programmes that carry out dynamic well calculations that effectively model wells both prior to real-life drilling or even during drilling. ‘It is this kind of work that distinguishes us from our competitors. We see a growing focus on pre-engineering and discussions relating to well control prior to starting to drill. One of the specific things we can do is to replicate a specific drill and then organise training around it – so if for example a deep sea well is involved, we can provide people with a realistic taste of the challenges they could face.’
And there is no shortage of takers. Last year over 8,000 students went through Wild Well Control’s sophisticated virtual-reality training school in Houston, where drilling simulation facilities include a blackened-out ‘war room’ complete with alarms and flashing lights. The big news announcement at Offshore Europe 2011 is that Wild Well Control has recently opened a similar state-of-the-art training centre in Aberdeen with three full-size simulators. Graham explains: ‘We opened it in May and we have already held several courses. The focus is on the well control certificate, which is renewable every two years, but we also do the IADC’s (International Association of Drilling Contractors) WellCAP+, which is the advanced well control training. This is a four to five day course encompassing 15-18 simulations.’
The new facility at Aberdeen will also serve as the company’s eastern hemisphere business unit, where it will co-ordinate another large aspect of the company’s work – permanent well abandonment and removal of offshore platforms and facilities. ‘This is going to come eventually to Europe and the North Sea, and it is something Wild Well Control has been involved in for a number of years, with a specific group set up to tackle that back in 2005.’
The rules regarding permanent abandonment, explains Graham, vary from country to country but usually involve the removal of pipelines and ensuring there is a complete seal in place. ‘In a lot of places a completely clear sea bed is required and in some cases the last thing that happens is a fishing boat trawls the area to make sure nothing is left on the sea bed that would damage fishing nets. Once North Sea decommissioning gets going we see our marine team building up quite considerably.’
Dealing with emergencies
Offshore Egypt, multi-well platform fire. Wild Well Control responded and secured the platform through relief well intervention.
Wild Well Control has ‘master service agreements’ in place with the majority of the world’s operating oil companies, enabling its customers to contact the company whenever a problem is encountered. For fire-related scenarios silos of fire fighting packages are stored in strategic locations around the world – Houston, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and The Netherlands.
And while fires do still occur, the significant portion of incidents that Wild Well Control responds to relate to pressure-control incidents – events which haven’t yet gone out of control but which could escalate. ‘There can be several of those happening globally at any one moment in time and our engineers are on hand to resolve pressure control problems and regain full control of the well.’
Graham emphasises however that the trend for emergency incidents is not on the rise. ‘The days of drilling for easy oil are gone and exploration now is much more challenging, either because of the environment or the type of well. The wells are deeper, or the they are high angled, or in deep-water environments. As a result we see more of a focus on pre-engineering and discussions relating to well control prior to even starting to drill.’ In addition Graham believes that these challenges are not beyond the technology on offer today.
Global Subsea Containment System
The effects of the Deepwater Horizon event in the Gulf of Mexico are still being felt but one of the results has been the development by Wild Well Control of the Global Subsea Containment System. ‘After the incident in the Gulf of Mexico we – as an industry – and the regulatory authorities have come to believe that there should be well capping and containment equipment readily available should another incident of that sort arise. So we have made a considerable investment in putting together a system we think we need to handle such an event.’
The key words here are ‘readily available’ and ‘system’. This type of equipment has been available in different components for some time, but in the Gulf part of the problem was assembling the complete system from beginning to end. The Wild Well Control Global Subsea Containment System does so, comprising debris removal equipment, shears to cut various underwater equipment, a diversion cap to divert the flow of hydrocarbons back to a vessel on the surface (so as not to cause unnecessary pollution), and a capping stack. ‘This is a first as far as bringing together all the components together not one complete system, and the authorities and oil companies realise that there is a need to have this kind of equipment available in various locations ready to go.’
