Trendsetter Completes Worldwide Containment Project
Trendsetter Engineering has completed work on a containment toolkit that can be deployed to minimize the environmental impact of a subsea well incident. This follows their delivery of four subsea well capping stacks, designed to shut in an uncontrolled subsea well, during 2013-2014.
The new toolkit, designed to work alongside standard industry well test hardware (i.e. vessels, well test equipment, drilling riser, BOP, inner string, coil tubing unit), incorporates long-lead items said to be not readily available.
It includes a flowline end termination; side-entry flow spool with subsea test tree latch; diverless subsea connectors; coiled tubing termination head; chemical distribution assembly; deployment reels for flying leads; flexible jumpers/flowlines; topsides transfer pumps and coolers; hose end valves; and offloading hoses. In cases where a well cannot be shut in, the containment system can be used to flow hydrocarbons from a subsea well to the surface for safe storage and disposal. During a response, it can be assembled in one, two, or three containment legs depending on the situation, providing additional response flexibility.
This toolkit will be stored in strategic locations to facilitate timely response worldwide. Its flexible subsea jumpers and subsea flowlines are too large to be transported by air, so three sets will be stored in the UK, Brazil, and Singapore ready for onward transit.
All other components are air-freightable and stored with the original equipment manufacturers in the UK, USA, and Norway. This toolkit includes guidelines to assist a well owner/operator in the development of a well-specific containment response plan.
Management, engineering and procurement were performed at Trendsetter’s facilities in Houston, Texas. The equipment will be owned by OSRL and will be made available to all operators worldwide on a subscription basis. The system provided by Trendsetter includes 3 FLETs, 3 flowspool assemblies, 6 flowline connectors, 3 flexible jumper connectors, 3 jumper choke connectors, 7 connectors mounted over pressure protection devices, as well as custom containers and skids to enable air freight of this subsea intervention equipment.
The equipment will utilize an innovative flow back and capture solution to direct well hydrocarbons to surface for a safe disposal, if ever required in a subsea intervention. The flowspool assembly, a custom manifold with hydraulic valves, is landed on a dummy wellhead to transition flow from the incident well to a vertical riser. At surface, the flowspool is connected to the collection vessel via an internal landing string equipped with a traditional subsea test tree system.
This system simplifies and expedites the mobilization and installation efforts, makes the system modular to accommodate rapid response during emergency, and minimizes storage and maintenance costs.