Regional Government

The Libra Extend Well Test (EWT) project is composed of 2 satellite wells interconnected to an FPSO with an external Turret anchor. One well is the producer, with 6-inch service lines and 8-inch production line in lazy wave risers configuration. The other well is the injector, with two 6-inch gas flow lines also in lazy wave compliant configuration. In the project planning several actions were considered in order to guarantee the first oil date determined by the project, while the production unit (FPSO) was not available in the location and ready to pull-in campaign. One of these actions studied and later adopted was the prelaying operation of the flexible lines with floaters in the lazy wave configuration of the production line of the production well. Later on, similar studies were done considering the pre-laying of injection lines also. As this type of operation is not a track records at Petrobras for the ultra-deep water scenario, additional studies were necessary to ensure its feasibility and the safety execution. The objective of this article is to present the previous studies and the result achieved in the pre-laying operation of flexible line with floaters in the lazy wave configuration of the Libra EWT service line.

Key Takeaways

• Building on prior studies that identified inattentiveness as a causal factor of incidents, this article discusses research to determine whether attentiveness of electric power line installers could be increased through cognitive training exercises.
• The authors used the sustained attention to response task (SART) to assess the effect of training.
• Researchers observed a statistically significant beneficial effect of cognitive training on SART performance.
• The power workers’ 4-year incident histories subsequent to the study indicated safer on-the-job performance by those who had received cognitive training than for the control group. However, sampling concerns indicate the need for additional research to better evaluate the relationship between cognitive training and on-the-job incident rates.

Investigating the causal factors of electric line worker incidents is of high priority due to the decades-long record of incidents in the electric power industry. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, 2018), 152 electrical line installer fatalities occurred in the U.S. in 2011 through 2016. For the individual years, the fatality numbers were 26, 27, 27, 25, 26 and 21, respectively. These rates often account for the ranking of electric line installers among the most dangerous professions in the U.S. Major contributors to electric line work incidents include electrocutions, machines, tools and vehicles (BLS, 2018). Closer inspection of these contributors reveals that their antecedents consist of attentional, strategic or knowledge factors (Reason, 1997). The study presented in this article investigates the role of sustained attention as a primary contributor to electric line worker incidents.

Little research exists concerning the safety of electric power line installers and, to the authors’ knowledge, no research is available regarding attentiveness as a causal factor of installer incidents. Specifically, the effect of sustained attention and vigilance (cognitive skills of immediate relevance to incident prevention for these workers) has not been examined. Past studies of cognitive-training regimens have evaluated both the effect on the trained task and transfer of training benefit to related but untrained cognitive tasks.

Key Takeaways

• Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia whose symptoms include fever, chills, cough, muscle aches, headaches, diarrhea and shortness of breath.
• Legionnaires’ disease is on the rise. The rate of reported cases has increased more than five times since 2000.
• The disease can be prevented. A properly maintained water system can eliminate the creation of Legionella bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease.

Some businesses in the U.S. may have a health hazard lurking in their water system and be unaware of it. This health hazard is known as Legionella, which is a significant health concern that can lead to substantial, yet avoidable, cost. Legionella is a bacteria that lives in water and includes more than 50 bacterial species. The main species connected to Legionella is L. pneumophila, which was the cause of a 1976 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak among members of the American Legion and is still responsible for most cases of Legionnaires’ disease in the U.S. and Europe. Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia whose symptoms include fever, chills, cough, muscle aches, headaches, diarrhea and shortness of breath. The disease has not been proven to be transmitted from person to person (CDC, 2016).

While it was not discovered until 1976, Legionella has existed since about 1968 when the first cases of Pontiac fever were identified in Pontiac, MI. In 1976, public health officials demonstrated that both the Pontiac fever and newly discovered Legionella had the same bacterium (Montopoli, 1993).

Legionnaires’ disease is on the rise, and CDC (2018a) says that the rate of reported cases of the disease has increased 5.5 times since 2000. In the U.S., waterborne disease outbreaks associated with Legionella have been tracked through the Waterborne Disease and Outbreak Surveillance System since 2001. According to CDC (2018c), Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks occur when two or more people are exposed to Legionella in the same place and get sick at about the same time. The disease may be underdiagnosed due to the symptoms it mimics; the number of cases could be higher.

Following the first pilot success of the truly rigless 3-1/2" tubing cable deployed ESP (TTESP-CD in offshore field of Sarawak Basin, PETRONAS has taken steps to further advance in the technology development and application through more replications within Sarawak and Malay Basin. PETRONAS had been looking into a strong business case for the TTESP-CD technology for a wider application throughout Malaysia region by looking at fields with strong/moderate water drive and low bubble point pressure besides having other limitations on the platform including the facilities reliability issues. TTESP-CD are to be applied widely in Malaysia with more flexibilities in design and improvement towards the subsurface equipment, installation equipment and procedures. With the challenges in the existing completion and production requirement for replications, based on the lesson learnt from the pilot implementation, multiple improvements to the system have been done including; 1) A High Rate Slim Pump with Flexible Application 2) Alignment Tool for Cable Hanger Orientation. With this in place, more opportunities identified for the candidate selection which improve the installation philosophy specifically in dual string applications and enhance the efficiency in installation procedures. Case studies of TTESP-CD replications in Malay & Sarawak Basin for Field T, Field B and Field P presenting the best case for TTESP-CD application with improvement to design, equipment and application. These will bring additional value to PETRONAS with estimated production gain of 1.5 KBD and up to 1.2 MMSTB reserves to be monetized with additional value saving of up to RM 6 Mill. Besides the subsurface challenges, aging offshore assets brings a lot of challenges, especially on the space availability, structural integrity, power availability and distribution, instrumentation and data transmission. This requires an integrated approach from multiple disciplines in delivering the studies as per required within the targeted timeframe.

The 2015 oil price downturn and future uncertainty in the industry have resulted in Malaysia Oil and Gas Regulator PETRONAS (MPM) taking a more proactive role in driving Malaysian Petroleum Arrangement Contractors (PACs) to maximize lifecycle value from their well stock. Key focus areas include streamlining review processes, reducing well cost, maximizing production from active wells and reactivating idle wells, reducing failures from well activities, driving value driven surveillance and promoting low cost well abandonment. This paper will focus on how the objective & value driven approach by PETRONAS MPM have resulted in business performance improvements at the national level through proactive and effective well value maximization throughout field/well lifecycle, from exploration stage down to the decommissioning and abandonment stage.

JZS is an offshore metamorphic rock buried hill oilfield. Both horizontal and vertical velocities of the oil field change very fast. The interval velocity of the buried hill stratum is twice that of the overlying strata, and the top surface of the buried hill fluctuates greatly with a maximum height difference of 300m. In the complex buried hill reservoir, since the current professional seismic software can not realize variable time-depth relationship in horizontal direction, which leads to the error of the trajectory form and position of the horizontal well in time domain, therefore the well trajectory in time domain is not matched with that in depth.

In this paper, a new practical trajectories matching method for buried hill horizontal wells in time domain and in depth is presented. First of all, we carried on the research on the theoretical form of horizontal well trajectory in buried hill in time domain. The research shows that the theoretical trajectory form of a horizontal well in buried hill is consistent with trend of the buried hill top surface morphology. On the basis of theoretical research, by establishing the pseudo time-depth relationship of horizontal well based on measure depth (MD) and seismic reflection two way time (TWT), we realized the accurate characterization of the trajectory form and position of a horizontal well in buried hill in time domain: (1)For normal horizontal well with no more than 90 degrees inclination angle, we can respectively establish the pseudo time-depth relationship of the horizontal well in buried hill segment and in upper segment, and then merge both time-depth relationship data into a whole; (2)For the complex horizontal well with well segment whose inclination angle is more than 90 degrees, we need firstly split the well trajectory into normal well segment and complex segment according to inclination angle, then establish the pseudo time-depth relationship in normal and complex well segments respectively. More specifically, we can split the trajectory into normal trajectory segment with the inclination angle no more than 90 degrees and complex trajectory segment with the inclination angle more than 90 degrees, for normal segment, we can establish pseudo time-depth relationship like the normal horizontal well described earlier, for complex trajectory segment, we need creatively invert the top and bottom of the complex segment to convert inclination angle of the segment to within 90 degrees, and then establish pseudo time-depth relationship of the inverted segment.

Through this method, we can obtain the accurate trajectory form and position of the horizontal well in time domain and it provides a basis for accurate geological modeling based on 3D seismic attributes constrains. The real reservoir performance of JZS buried oilfield in Bohai Bay in China has proved that the 3D geological model based on the new time-depth relationship (MD&TWT) of the horizontal wells is closer to the actual reservoir.

This paper presents an alternative solution for gas cloud imaging using full wavefield migration (FWM). The application of FWM method have been applied on both synthetic dataset with gas cloud event and existing field with gas cloud issue. The full wavefield migration is an inversion-based imaging algorithm that utilizes the complete reflection measurements: primaries as well as all multiples, both surface and internal to obtain the total reflections measurement. It combines the primary and higher order scattering reflection from the gas cloud to estimate the true amplitude response below the gas cloud. Successful applications to both synthetic and field data examples demonstrate that FWM improves the imaging illumination and resolution below gas cloud as compared to conventional migration.

The objective of this paper is to share the holistic approach to managing aging fleet for offshore fixed steel structures. PETRONAS is currently operating a fleet of more than 200 fixed offshore structures in Malaysian water. More than half of it has exceeded the original design life. With enhanced oil recovery and other developing technologies, offshore platforms often than not are required to continue operating beyond its original design life.

A holistic approach for life extension of fixed offshore structures are being developed to ensure safe operations of the facilities. PETRONAS has started SIM journey since 2007. The approach of Data, Evaluation, Strategy and Programme in line with API RP 2SIM set the basis for managing the integrity of the offshore fleet. An integrated solution was developed to manage both topsides and substructures. The Structural Integrity Compliance System (SICS) which houses the integrity management of topsides deteriorations to prioritize resources through risk based anomalies management. Risk based underwater inspection also formed part of the solutions, addressing mainly extreme storm in the region. Other Major Accidental Hazards (MAHs) risk ranking included in SICS are vessel collision and seismic. Management of facilities with minimal redundancy such as guyed wire monopod is addressed through time based inspection. A regional hazard curve is also developed to ensure the facilities are meeting the acceptance criteria set forth by the industry.

Besides aging, other integrity triggers including shallow gas and subsidence required a different scheme in managing the integrity of the facilities, primarily addressed through a comprehensive monitoring programme.

There is no one size fit all recipe in managing the aged platforms for life extension. The data plays a crucial role in ensuring the right methodology is deployed in support of digitalization and data driven decision making. Implementation of the system is proven to be reliable in ensuring the offshore fixed structures are intact to support safe and continuous operations to the operator in a cost optimum manner. The data analytics help to enhance the predictive model to optimize the inspection and maintenance programme.

Strong ownership and commitment of the structural integrity engineers in ensuring the data integrity maintain the challenge in sustainability of the system and provide reliable source for data driven decision making to the operator.

Category: Operational Excellence (136 - Managing Aging Facilities)

Klemens is a research assistant and PhD candidate in Petroleum Engineering (within Earth Science & Engineering program) at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (founded by Saudi Aramco) focusing on Multi-Data reservoir history matching utilizing ensemble Kalman-based techniques. His work has been presented at several conferences amongst others at the IPTC 2014 and the OTC Asia 2014 and in an invited talk at the Petroleum Engineering Department at Texas A&M. Klemens has come 2nd place in the IPTC YP Poster competition in 2014, 2nd place in the graduate division at the Middle East & South Asia Student Paper Contest 2013 and 2014. As the president of the SPE KAUST Student Chapter he has led chapter to qualify for the PetroBowl 2013 and 2014, as well as  led the SPE KAUST Student Chapter to become an outstanding student chapter of the year 2014, the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued a final environmental impact statement (PEIS) for proposed geological and geophysical surveys of the Gulf of Mexico regarding possible oil and gas development. Because marine seismic surveys are critical in finding offshore oil and gas, The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers and the International Association of Geophysical Contractors have collaborated on a position paper that assesses the effect of such work on marine mammals.