Member Info for adoubleuk

BlooBird,

"The new cases, against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and Koch Industries, dredge up old internal documents, but they look political from top to bottom.

I think that the Oil Co.s should issue a joint statement saying :-
"We totally disagree with your accusations but, as a goodwill gesture, we all promise to refrain from shipping any more hydrocarbons into Minnesota and Washington, D.C.
That includes the following :-
Gasoline for your cars
Diesel for your trucks
Kerosene for your aircraft
Natural Gas for heating
Fertilizers for your agriculture
Etc. Etc.
We look forward to your response."

Post of the day. In other words the oil companies just go tell the plaintiffs to go f*** themselves. Nice idea. In fact they're probably setting such measures in progress as we write.

Hi Slift,

"Hi adoubleuk, Just thought i'd add that there's 2 ESPs in each well for maintenance purposes too.
E.g. regular pigging of the pipeline, or other regular maintenance required. All to minimise downtime."

OK, from the outset, I don't want to get into a p**sing contest with you here ! Had enough of those over the years...

This is a strictly tech discussion, and it seems some other posters seem to appreciate such stuff, instead of imbeciles cropping up with forcasts of the SP 'ten-bagging' tomorrow and other such chartist nonsense, with the result that the SP goes red again the next day.

But the thing is, I fail to see any connection or relevence relating to the ESP's somehow 'streamlining' pigging time nor anything like that. Other than yes, I can understand that if the well is flowing 'faster', the pig might be retrieved at the trap a few minutes earlier. But that seems to me to be a trivial detail.

As mentioned earlier, things like flowline pigging are necessary evils and planned maintenance. To my mind, if the BoD are trying to 'cut costs' by shaving a few minutes off pigging time through using the ESP 'boost', they're barking up the wrong tree. The time saved would be minimal, whereas the risk greater.

Over to you ! :-)

JB,

Long time no yack together on this BB !

"RT must be feeling very low at the moment IMHO"

IMOHO I suspect not. For starters, he's been retained by the BoD 'in an advisory capacity'. We don't know if this is on a a 'retainer fee' or an ad hoc basis, but don't worry, he'll be paid for his advice.

Seconly, throughout his 'stewardship' of the company from garden-shed to where it is now, he must have become quite a wealthy man. And without knowing anything sure about the matter, probably lives in the same place with the shed at the bottom of the garden, enjoying the time he has to spare to make models of WWII bombers and the suchlike.

And remember, he has a shedload (pun intentional) of shares. Which will come to fruition someday.

20/20 hindsight is a great thing. Unless you've lost out. But I don't see how Dr T can have lost. He's proved his point, which was what it was all about to start with. 15,000 bbl /day oil from Fractured Basement through an EPS done on a shoestring budget is not to be sneezed at.

Doctor Trice looked downbeat during that shoddy and dispiriting amateurish webcast CMD. But given the two talking heads he had to share it with and subsequently the ignorant questions he was forced to answer, I'm not surprised. And he's probably back to his grinning old self now, enjoying barbecues in the back garden and only answering the phone from the BoD when he wants to.

I (personally) have a slight interest in steam-engines and railways. (Nothing completely 'gricer'), I hasten to add. Nothing as serious as my fulltime interest in making money playing poker, 'retired' interest in the oilfield, and chasing younger women. And as bedtime reading, am going over the history of the Festiniog Railway in N.Wales, where Iworked for two or three years in the summer as a 'volunteer'. And it remains fascinating. I've sometimes compared Dr Trices' work as similar to that of Sir James Dyson, but recent events have maybe made that seem wrong. But the ups-and-downs of the Festiniog over more than a century-and-a-half also ring bells, especially in the way a business can have its ups-and-downs.

We're just in a 'down' period right now.

HH,

"Any perceived benefits from WI are trumped by one major issue in a fractured basement reservoir, that being the the continuity, or otherwise, of the fracture matrix between two points."

Forget the idea of water-injection into Lancaster or any of the rest of Hurricane's assets for pressure-support. It won't happen for years yet. This was done in the early years in China and Vietnam where FB was essentially discovered to be worthwhile, and WI was found to be a huge mistake. But those were 'formative years', and the thinking was still in 'conventional' terms. FB can't we equated to 'conventional'. It doesn't work the same way.

IANAA,

I see that Heidhoncho has given you a pretty good explanation of why the flowlines are pigged, but not the wells themselves. Sorry I was unable to reply to your post immediately: I was 80 miles away playing poker, and have only just got home.

Mathematics,

"Why are we discussing hydrates/pigging ops? In Hurricane's case, they have a very simple subsea architecture with the wells located close to the FPSO. "

The subject cropped up through a poster asking for some technical info. Not as being a subject which might be a a potential 'problem' or issue'. In fact we were informed shortly after FoiL that pigging intervals had been found to require less frequency than previously anticipated.

However I'd disagree with your phrase above about the wells being 'near to' the FPSO, even though I'm probably splitting hairs. Because the wells are about 2.5km from the boat. OK, many subsea flowlines are a lot longer than that. But even so, counting the risers, the flowlines are about as long as the wells are deep (measured depth along wellbore). So the oils spends as long (if not longer) travelling along the relatively low-pressure flowline environment as it does in the higher-pressure and warmer production tubing.

noelbpz, 'Mathmatics' has answered your question, albeit briefly.

Essentially the pig' does a journey from the FPSO (dispatched from a thing called a 'pig launcher' !) and is pumped down the riser and along the flowline. It then returns along the same route, usually propelled by well-pressure to be retrieved in another quaintly-named thing, a 'pig trap'. The pig doesn't enter the well itself.

Although the operation is 'planned downtime', the well probably doesn't have to be shut down completely, but instead noth wells being routed through the single flowline not being pigged at the time. But that's just guesswork on my part.

noelpbz,

"1. where are the ESP’s actually located - are they at the Lancaster Manifold or directly at the well head or elsewhere ?

2. it has been said that there are two ESP”s (adoubleuk) installed per well (6 and 7z) - are they placed in series or in parallel ?"

The ESP's are installed as part of the 'production tubing string'. In other words, they're downhole, not at the wellheaqd or the manifold. I don't know the exact depth they're placed at. In some ways they can be said to be 'in series', in that one pump assembly is placed above the other. But only one pump will be run at any particular time. The main reason why there are two pumps per well is for design redundency. If one pump eventually goes out of service, the other can be brought into play.

Capt Swag,

The 'for sale' sign has been hanging on Hurricane's door for years.

daltry,

I personally hope that someone working for the copany would NOT use the monlcker 'Planted BHA' !!! It would be tempting fate too far.

Theorem,

"A Master's degree is not a substitute for extensive experience within the oil industry. "

Absolutely.

However, the two are not mutually exclusive. About ten years ago a young 'trainee' MDD engineer appeared on the wellsite I was 'running' in Gabon. And goodness me, that pretty young lady didn't half 'work her way up the ladder' quickly, and not just because of her good looks. But instead, because she had brains, and (more to the point) knew how to use 'em. So fast, that in fact I ended up learning more about MWD from her than I already knew, even if I was the 'boss' of the site. We became good friends, and I was almost in love with her. We conspired together to have the front-end loader 'accidentally' destroy the satellite link to Schlumberger's base so we didn't have backseat-drivers in another country telling us we were running the equipment too hard! Great times.

Masters degree in maths from the university of Tours, France. Not bad for a young lady of Senegalise/Mali extraction. Last time I saw her (back in Port-Gentil) she was running the entire MWD/LWD office.

Funny place, the oilfield. My own academic field of study was European literature and Philosophy. But instead ended up in oilwell drilling. Once (back in early days) working on the Montrose Alpha as a roughneck, I was part of a very eclectic crew indeed. Driller was an ex-mariner, ex-mercenary in Africa. But an utter gentleman. Asst Driller had a Masters degree in astronomy. Derrickman had a degree in Geography, but spent all his leave-time as a swimming-pool attendant, to 'pull the birds'. Me? The arts. Roughneck 2 ? A seventeen-year old Glaswegian street-fighter who'd lied about his age. Roughneck 3? An ex-taxidriver from Yarmouth on the run from his ex-wife.

And let's not mention the deck-crew. Nor the 'management', come to that.

Takes all sorts...

Hello Mr Spain-Villa,

Mr card-shark here.

"enjoying the recent spate of sensible posts here."

Unfortunately it seems to have deteriorated into seeing who can wee furthest up the wall.

Slift ! PlantedBHA ! Please make peace with each other instead of comparing who's got the most gilt-edged diploma. My pressure-control accreditation (renewed every two years) dates back to 1980, when Gene Wilson was the tutor for SEDCO's in-house courses, before he went on to found Aberdeen Drilling Schools. Accreditation which I've maintained current (sometimes at great cost to myself, because driving from Niort to Aberdeen or Malaga isn't cheap). Plus I've got just about every other oilfield accreditation around, all those from way back when in Montrose, MODUSPEC, etc., etc..

Though (too late now), I reckon I'd have a hard time renewing my 'offshore survival' ticket.

Both your posts so far have made interesting reading. So leave out the bickering, please.

MCB55,

"When talking about BHP, I am really mean bottom hole flowing pressure not static pressure!"

Thank goodness for that. For a moment I thought I might be corresponding with an idiot, but your previous posts didn't put you into that category.

However, it's made me think.

A recent 'Edison Report' has said that BHP is 'lower than expected'. And I wonder if they might not have made the same little typo as yourself. Because BHP is KNOWN, for goodness' sake, and for a long time. But BHFP is a different beast, and I'm a Drilling person, not 'production', so don't really know what a lower-than-expected BHFP actually might mean. Won't stop me thinking about it, though ! :-))

Sorry 'bout the multiple question-mark reply to you, but I couldn't resist it. Mirror of an email exchange made within BP management people just a few hours before the DWH went up in flames...

DC,

Firstly, there is no 'lined section'. Unless you're referring to the 'cased section'. And yes, of course the ESP's (and the rest of the production completion) are within the cased hole, the casing 'shoe depth' being close to the start of the horizontal open-hole. The completions are latched into a production packer which is almost certainly 120 ft minimum uphole from the shoe. The open hole section is what it says. And there's NOW WAY anyonone would even think about running an ESP along a horizontal OH section in granite!

I DON'T KNOW at what depth the ESP's are located. But one thing I do know is that ESP's are best run vertically, or if at an angle, in a place where that angle is constant, or close to it.

Heck, I haven't much better to do right now today, so I'm going to go sleuthing around the net to see if Hurricane may not have inadvertantly posted one of their well schematics somewhere !

Capt Swag,

"however you comments were unnecessary - you could have politely pointed out i was being a numptie - which i would have accepted..."

My apologies if I seemed abrupt and rude. It wasn't intended that way. But (maybe a personal failing of mine) I tend to 'see red' when I read factual inaccuracies about oilfield stuff posted on places like this as though they were true.

MCB55,

"BHP " should be higher than the pressure for natural flow ", actually I think lower, thus providing a "suck" along the well bore!?"

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MCB55,

Completely agree with your reasoning, we're obviously thinking along the same lines, even with very sparse actual data. Of course that may just mean we're both barking up the wrong tree, but I hope not !

As for where the ESP's are placed, that's anyone's guess, other than frome someone who's seen an actual well schematic. But I don't believe they'll be down deep in the casing. ESP's don't work well at high angles: if for nothing other than the gas-separation aspect. Somewhere midpoint up the buildup section of the hole, maybe? We don't even know at what depth the production packers are set.

Cap't Swag,

Sorry, read your later post before your earlier one !

"if the esp sort out the interference then that shows that had they been commissioned earlier on - which in my mind is criminal that it wasnt - you test your kit straight off in case any issues - there would have been no need for the rns with shutting down well 7."

I'm not saying that with the ESP's now in the game, the 'interference' problem will be solved. But I suspect it may be.

I too am left perplexed as to why the ESP control equipment on the FPSO (the 'VSD's') was not commissioned early on, even if 'criminal' might be a rather strong word for that. But I do have my intuitions and guesswork. There was a lot going on last year, post-FoiL, not least of which being the GWA drilling campaign. Which I suspect might have been occupying Dr Trice's mind a bit more than the Lancaster production, some of which had alredy been delegated to a new Board member. And I also suspect that commissioning of the VSD's was 'backheeled' due to being in intially seen as 'not necessary yet' until it was found that it might be a good idea. A little bit too late, and then covid came along to chuck an extra spanner into the timeline's works.

All guesswork, though. But not (to my mind) implausible.

CaptainSwag,

"i am sure i read that esps were used in gas fields where there were increasing water cuts and their effect was found to match or exceed performance in all cases. i am not an oilie but would have thought it would be similar"

I don't wish to be impolite, but yes, you are definitely not 'an oilie', and no, you most certainly never read that anywhere ! I suggest you stick to your day-job, whatever it is. ESP's are NOT used in gas fields!

As this 'water issue' keeps raising its head here, I'd suggest this easily-read article for education:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shale-water-kemp/water-is-the-biggest-output-of-u-s-oil-and-gas-wells-kemp-idUSKCN0J223P20141118

Slift,

"The ESP's were installed on well 6 two years ago"
Ignoring the interference and focusing on just one well, there is no need for ESPs if the well can produce a decent PI (which HUR's well does) with little water cut. Two years ago, water cut from well 6 wasn't an issue. From the recent RNS, HUR have told us that the water cut in this well has increased from 8 to 11%. Going forwards, it makes sense to me ESPs are required to "control" this watercut."

A straighforward suggestion, straightforwardly given, in respect to your comment about 'learning'. I'd already sussed you as someone with probably academic oilfield qualifications, possibly a Drilling Engineer. Nothing wrong with that, so long as one learns to walk before trying to run. But you seem a bit 'behind' on your 'Hurricane History'.

I advise you to read the Lancaster CPR, which can be found on the company website.

Well Six was tested immediately after drilling on bothe natural flow and ESP. Likewise well Seven (pilot hole) and Seven Zed (the existant producer, sidetracked off 7). They were left on standby, then recompleted two years ago prior to move-in of the FPSO. The completions include tandem ESP's (Schlumberger) with a 'Y bypass' for natural flow. Hurricane are extremely 'tight' regarding technical details, so it's not public-domain knowledge (or at least, I haven't found it, not for lack of trying !) at what depth the ESP's are set. Nor the production packer.

Such completions, from the get-go, imply that the company anticipated a certain water-cut right from the beginning, hence the inclusion of the ESP's. And the fact that there are two of them in each well means redundancy, so they weren't planning any workovers in the close future !

I agree with you (and I've written it here myself in the past) that having the ESP's now online gives the company lots more 'play with' opportunities. (And by the way, disagree with something you wrote the other day. Yes, they WILL be 'playing with choke sizes. With the ESP running, the choke at the subsea wellhead will be considerably 'choked-down' relative to natural flow conditions.)

Essentially we're in agreement, however. It's been months now that I've been writing here that getting the ESP's running will give a lot more options for optimizing production. Note the word 'optimizing' rather than 'maximizing': two different things. It seems a shame however that this has happened AFTER Dr Trice's departure, rather than before. I just hope that the new BoD are taking full advantage of his 'advisory capacity'.

Slift,

"I don't agree with your statement: "Well 6 quite self-evidently does not require ESP assistance right now."

Firstly, ESPs help control the water cut and is best controlled (or minimised the increase in water cut %) when installed and commissioned early on.
I'm glad that they installed ESP on well 6 now rather than later when watercut rises significantly."

I've been reading your posts with interest, because you're obviously tech-minded like myself. Even if you let slip your age, recently ! :-))

However, this time I take issue with a couple of your statements.

"ESPs help control the water cut"

No they don't.

"I'm glad that they installed ESP on well 6 now rather than later "

The ESP's were installed on well 6 two years ago as part of the recompletion prior to the FPSO being moved in and First Oil. It must be assumed that they were tested as being functional at the time, even though full 'cleanup' was deferred until the AM was in place.

For some unexplained (and to my mind inexplicable) reason, the VSD sytems on the FPSO were not commissioned immediately following FoiL, and then late last year, we were vaguely informed that this would be done by February. It wasn't, and then came this covid nonsense.

Personally I can see an advantage is running well 7z on ESP while retaining 6 on natural flow, as a means of artifically 'balancing' their pressure regimes and preventing 7z's higher water-cut from affecting and influencing 6. Or possibly even giving 7z a 'preferential' flowrate, to avoid the water zone that well has intersected from migrating over the small distance between the two wells' initial open-hole sections. But I can see no reason why both wells should be run on ESP for now, unless for commissioning purposes.

But back to the top. With the ESPs now in the game, water-cut may be better 'managed', and especially the so-called 'interference' between the two wells. But don't expect them to be some magic wand to reduce the water-cut in the near future. In fact, if 7z is put on preferential flow, percentage overall water-cut may increase, but the FPSO can handle that.

I do not expect an 'instant' RNS resulting from this ESP 'test period', and in fact if one appears 'instantly' I will treat it with deep suspicion and pick it to pieces mercilessly to find any faults or whitewash!

One thing remains, however. The Lancaster field continues to produce 14,000+ barrels of oil a day, at latest count. Water produced at the same time goes over the vessel's side, and isn't for sale. But equally, produced water doesn't 'cost' the company anything, increase the running costs of the FPSO, not reduce the value of the oil exported. Unfortunately some ninnies in The City don't seem to understand this. 14,000 bopd is something not to be sneezed at, and makes PMO's Solan field look stupid when one compares the development costs for that field and the peanuts Hurricane has paid for the current EPS.