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Project 20K aims to unlock

HP/HT deepwater reserves Key vendors, researchers recruited to reach 20,000-psi target

O ver the past several years, superma- jor BP has built up reser ves byacquiring acreage in some of the world’s most challenging deepwaterbasins, including the Gulf of Mexi-

co’s ultra-deepwater Paleogene, Egypt’s West Nile Delta, and offshore Azerbaijan,

where reser voir pressures and tempera-tures exceed the industry’s current tech-nology capacity. It stands to reason, then,that BP has taken a leading position in theeffor t to develop that technology.

Early last year, the company announcedProject 20K, a multi-pronged research and de-

velopment program to “develop, by the end ofthe decade, the technologies to be able to drill,complete, produce, and intervene in deepwa-ter reservoirs that have (pressures of) 20,000psi at the mudline,” as BP’s Project 20K leaderin Houston, Kevin Kennelly, puts it. “Today’slimit is at 15,000 psi. So this is an evolution upto the next spec break in equipment.”

The Project 20K R&D effort encompassesfour main areas of focus: well design andcompletions; rigs, risers, and BOPs; subseaproduction systems; and well interventionand containment. In addition to the 20,000-psi target, the equipment will need to with-stand reservoir temperatures as high as350°F (175°C). About 70 BP engineers areassigned to the program, most of them inHouston, where the project team is based.

In November 2012, BP awarded its initialProject 20K contracts to KBR and FMC Tech-nologies. The former was tasked with devel-oping program execution and management

plans for the project, including cost (whichKennelly will only say is “in the range of bil-lions of dollars”) and schedule estimates,risk assessment, and technical designs. FMC

was enlisted to work with BP to design anddevelop the subsea production equipment, in-cluding a 20,000-psi subsea tree and a high in-tegrity pressure protection system (HIPPS).

Last February, the company announcedthat it had selected Maersk Drilling to beits collaborator on the program’s rig, risers,and BOP design segment. Maersk’s team,in both Houston and Copenhagen, has beenperforming engineering studies to select therig and equipment design for the task. The

new rigs are expected to include advancedoperating systems, real-time BOP monitor-ing, and “signicantly enhanced mechanicalcapabilities of the BOP, rig structures, andpiping systems,” BP said at the time of theannouncement. Engineers are using de-sign criteria geared to the US Gulf of Mex-ico, where BP is appraising the PaleogeneKaskida and Tiber prospects.

“We are looking at a deepwater unit witha high hook load capacity and high variabledeck load capacity,” says Maersk chief tech-nology ofcer Frederik Smidth. Althoughthe team has yet to make a formal recom-mendation, engineers are leaning toward adrillship concept. “Originally, we were opento both a semi and a ship,” he says. “But asit looks right now, due to the functional re-quirements, it looks like we will end up witha ship-shaped hull.

“Ultimately, the intention for both parties,

I hope, is to continue the work, and that it will end up in contracts for a number of rigs with good, long drilling contracts.”

Kennelly agrees: “The idea is, we designone and build several. And they can be usedanywhere around the world. The big driverhere is reservoir pressure, not water depth.

We’re not breaking new ground with waterdepth; we’re designing this equipment for10,000-ft water depth. This project is de-signed for deepwater applications, but we’retargeting a range.”

Hook load capacity on the new vessels, hesays, could reach 3 million pounds, well abovethe current capacity of 2.5 million pounds.

Industry evolutionHigh-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT)

technology has evolved incrementally, withhigher capacity achieved rst in onshore ap-plications, Kennelly explains.

“The way the industry has evolved, itstarted at 5,000-psi equipment onshore, andthen it went to 10,000 psi onshore. We tookthe 5,000-psi equipment and marinized itfor offshore. When they went to 15,000 psionshore, we took the 10,000-psi equipmentand marinized it, so it could be used in deep- water. Today, there’s 20,000-psi equipmentonshore, but there’s no 20,000 psi capabilityoffshore. It’s limited to 15,000. That’s why we say it’s an evolution.”

Raising the bar to 20,000 psi offshore willfollow a similar pattern of marinization “inoverall terms,” he says. “You have the design,the build, the qualication testing, and then you put it into service. Those fundamental

steps are the same. But we’re going to dosome things different in 20K. We’re goingto do a lot more qualication testing on theengineered systems, not just components orindividual pieces of equipment. The reasonfor that is we want to be absolutely sure thatthe equipment is safe, that it’s reliable, andthat it operates to its intended function. Sothere’s quite a bit more qualication testingthat we’re going to do on this project.”

In August, 2012, BP pledged $100 mil-lion to establish the BP International Centrefor Advanced Materials, an academic pro-gram devoted to the research and develop-ment of new materials for offshore applica-

Russell McCulleySenior Technical Editor

BP is concentrating its 20K initiative in four areas: well design, drilling and completions; rig, riser, andBOP equipment; subsea production system; and intervention and containment. (Image courtesy BP)

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tions, including HP/HT. The University ofManchester’s Faculty of Engineering andPhysical Sciences serves as a hub for theprogram, which also funds researchers atthe University of Cambridge, Imperial Col-lege London, and the University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign. The 10-year investmentprogram will sponsor research into advancedmaterials and is expected to support 25 newacademic posts, along with 100 post-graduateresearchers and 80 post-doctoral fellows. Theprogram will examine the adaptation of mate-rials developed for other industries, includingaerospace, for the offshore energy realm.

“Our work has shown us that we need togo beyond just making things bigger andheavier,” Kennelly says. “We’re looking atnew, lightweight, high-strength materials thatcan withstand these higher pressures andtemperatures up to 350°F. And we’re looking

at ways to incorporate inherently safer sealingcomponents and designs.” Testing will be conducted at pressures and

temperatures higher than those found in thereservoirs, he adds: “There are testing ven-ues out there capable of doing that, but wethink there will be some upgrading involved.”

Project 20K research includes methodsto minimize human error in drilling and pro-duction operations by improving what Ken-nelly calls the “man-machine interface.” Oneexample is the use of shape rather than col-or alone to distinguish buttons or switches.Color blindness, he notes, is fairly commonin men, making color-coded buttons harderto identify in an emergency. Advanced sys-tems will also rely more on computers to as-sist in decision-making.

“That’s one of the things we’re looking ata lot, the man-machine interface,” Kennellysays: “How, when we can, do we take the manout of the decision-making process? And if wecan’t, how do we get the right information tothe person early enough, so that we know he

will make the right decision?”

Capacity and costProject 20K rig design has been largely

driven by the load capacity necessary to

conduct drilling operations under the morerigorous reservoir conditions, says Smidth.“A semi could certainly do the job, and in

some aspects might even be an advantage,” hesays. “But the issue is that a semi capable of car-rying the load that we’re talking about would bea huge semi. From a cost perspective, we arealmost certain that a ship is a better solution.

“The well design is the basis, obviously,”he continues, “and we look at what casing

will need to be r un, what extra ser vices weneed to provide, and so on. So it’s not onlythe pressure-bearing equipment. That ispretty straightforward. But these wells re-quire very long and heavy casing strings

to be able to drill them efciently, meaning

that we need high hook load capacity. Whatnumber we are going to end up with we donot know yet. But it’s a high number.”

Working closely with BP has given Maerskan opportunity to identify potential inefcien-cies, information that the company plans touse to help improve margins with the newrigs, Smidth says.

“The intention is to come up with a rig thatcan safely drill in 20,000-psi conditions. Butbeyond that, we also expect to learn whatbrings value to our client, the oil company.” Asignicant reduction in non-productive time– for example, employing new material tech-nology that would enable less frequent sealreplacements – could help offset the inevita-bly higher day rates of the next-generationdrilling rigs, he says.

“I think it goes without saying that theseunits are going to be more expensive thantraditional 15,000-psi rigs,” Smidth said. “Ourgoal, together with BP, is to design a rig so that

we can construct a 20,000-psi well at more orless the cost of a 15,000-psi well. Obviously,

you will need a higher day rate for a moreexpensive unit. But if we can do it faster andsmarter, then we will reduce non-productivetime. There’s a lot of knowledge there thatshould be harvested, and shared.”

With Project 20K, he added, “we nowhave access, with BP, to look at that non-productive time to see if there’s anything wecan do from a rig perspective to minimizethat, or reduce the risk of that kind of non-productive time from occurring.”

Industry solutions When the various pieces of Project 20K come

together and the new rigs set to work, perhapsas early as 2018, reaching the safety targetsthat BP has set forth will ultimately come downto properly trained personnel. Much of thattraining will be done at the Maersk Trainingcomplex in Svendborg, Denmark, where the

company recently installed a drilling simula-

tor that can support 20,000-psi instruction. Thecomplex includes a rig control room simulator,engine room simulator, and crane simulatorsfor integrated crew training.

Kennelly says much of the 20K tool kit willdraw on proven “but enhanced” technologies.

“KBR is working with BP and other contrac-tors to develop the functional specications forall equipment,” he said. “Once we do that, we work with the vendors to help develop equip-ment that complies with those specs.”

There could be a substantial payoff shouldBP be the rst to break deepwater HP/HTbarriers. BP’s offshore acreage alone couldhold 10-20 Bbbl in HP/HT reservoirs, accord-ing to the company’s estimates. But Kennellyinsists that “we’re not out to establish a com-petitive advantage. We’re out to develop indus-try solutions.

“In our case, we’re at the very forefrontof deepwater discoveries that require 20,000psi, compared to some of our competitors.But from a materiality scope and scale, there wouldn’t be enough business for the ven-dors to be interested in equipment only forBP. Again, we want to develop solutions thatthe industry can use, and we have a need forthat sooner rather than later.

“Our commitment is to develop this new

technology, and what’s absolutely paramountto us is that it’s safe, reliable, and operates toits intended design. That’s where our com-mitment is for the whole team. What’s uniquehere, I think, is that this is a joint project be-tween our global projects organization and ourglobal wells organization.

“And we’ve brought some of our key ven-dors in very, very early. We spent a lot of timelooking at the contractors we wanted to work with. We wanted to make sure they had thesame aligned vision as us, the same ideas onsafety, reliability, on performance, and ap-proach to design. And I’m very proud of who we’re working with.”

The drilling simulator at Maersk Training, in Svendborg, Denmark, will be used to train crews work-ing on 20K-capable drilling rigs. (Image courtesy Maersk)

Eprinted and posted with permission to FMC Technologies Inc from Offshore November © 2013 PennWell Corporation