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Good morning,
Still no activity at the NHDeul to get the rig to its final (drilling) position. The weather on site is still not good enough for the final move; a weather window may be there by Sunday.
The price of gas has gone through the roof and that may well be the only good thing in this process. Otherwise this scour protection / seabed remedial work could / would have been a financial disaster.
The Noble Drilling website and rig utility update does not disclose the dayrate of the NHD. But North Sea JU rates are well above USD 100 K / day. And the NHD left Southwark around January 15 and is now reported to be on stand-by rates.
Add the cost of hiring a rock-dumping vessel, add the cost of procurement of suitable rock, add the cost of engineering, surveys, survey vessel, consultants, supply vessel to bring food and consumables to the rig, demob and remob cost of the drilling crews, etc
And add the amount of lost income from first gas from Southwark that could have been in IOG's bankaccount months earlier.
Have a good weekend, ladies & gents
Hi Torobravo,
The AIS position of the rig is 200 meter or a bit more from the Southwark platform. Too far from the final position.
Getting a JU rig to its final position next to a production platform (so close that the drilling rig can be cantilevered out over the stern to enable the drilling string to come over the production slots on the platform) is precision work, involves tugs, anchors at the stern of the rig and a bit of guts from the rig-move captain.
Rule of thumb: when the wave height (Significant) is 1,5 meter or more , the final positioning is postponed. And that is written in the rig-move procedures, reviewed and approved by the Marine Warranty Surveyor (on behalf of the Owner of the platform)
I trust that this clarifies things.
Good morning,
The weather offshore is still not good enough for the final positioning of the JU rig at Southwark.
3 tugs (leading tug BB Octopus + 2 Multratug support tugs) are still around
The outlook for the next 48 hours: not so good in my opinion. By Sunday a weather window may be possible for the final positioning.
Stay safe!
Good morning,
Patience, ladies & gents! The NHDeul is still at the stand-off position near the Southwark platform.
Tugs are still hoovering around, waiting for a good weather window to get the rig in its final position.
But not today, I think! The weather forecast for the next 24-36 hours does not look and when I look outside, that does not surprise me at all: raining cats & dogs with a lot of wind.
Have a safe day.
Good morning,
NHDeul has arrived at the Southwark location. From what I see on Marine Traffic the rig is with legs down at a stand-off position hear the platform, not yet at its final position. This is common practise when the weather (plus the tidal currents on site) is marginal for the final positioning.
Weather forecast: Marginal for final positioning over the next days. Time will tell!
Have a nice day.
Tugs have arrived at the NHDeul!
The weather for the next 40 hours is good, so let's hope that the rig-move will start as soon as possible and get the NHD back to Southwark and resume drilling
Have a nice day !
Good morning,
All is quiet offshore and no rig-move activities are seen at the NHDeul.
The weather for the next days is not so good for a rig-move. lots of wind and waves may prevent a move in the near future.
Have a nice weekend
Good morning,
The rockdumping vessel Braveness wasworking around Southwark yesterday and has now left location and is steaming towards Ijmuiden, the Netherlands. Safe to assume that the scour protection / rockdumping work is completed.
No rig-move activities at the NH Deul (yet)
And no vessel activities around Blythe either
Greetings from onboard a RoRo vessel in the Ionian Sea
Good morning
No marine ops activities or changes seen in the past days.
No rig-move vessels at NHDeul, no vessels around Blythe and no vessels around Southwark
Have a nice sunday
Sorry about the late reply GG, I am on a cargo vessel between France and Turkey with limited internet
But the present status is:
- No rig-move activities seen yet at the NHDeul
- At Southwark no marine activities either
And Blythe: all is quiet, except that gas is produced and I assume the Elwood gas is coming in and through as well
It is early days, but I hope to see some more activity at Southwark soon in preparation of the move of NHDeul back to its Southwark drilling location
Have a nice day, all!
Good morning,
There is increased activity around Southwark.
The Stril Server, an offshore service vessel with subsea activity capabilities, is alongside.
Educated guess: working on the final pipeline from Southwark to the main Bacton export pipeline??
No rigmove activities at the NHDeul
And at Blythe no marine activities, only producing gas !
Have a nice day.
Very good to read that Elwood also cae online, as planned.
Congratulations IOG team & contractors!
On the marine operations side there is not much to tell.
The NHDeul is still at the temporary location near Elwood and no rig-move activities are seen
Gas is flowing from & through Blythe and that is all. No vessel activities there
And Southwark is still alone, no marine ops activities there either.
As GGIS pointed out in an earlier post, it may well be that first the remaining export pipeline from Southwark to the main Bacton pipeline has to be laid before the NHD can come in position to resume the drilling operations.
I am very curious to see what the SP does today. Yesterday was crazy. And I did not understand at all why and how that happened with all the good news about start of production in the air.
Have a nice day!
And so it begins :)
A very happy Dutchman on the other side of the pond
Have a great day , all !!
Good one GGIS !
And I fully agree with your post & thoughts
Brgds
Good morning,
The Walk-to-Work vessel Acta Orion has left Hull and is now on its way to Horn, west coast Norway.
It is safe to assume that the work of the IOG and contractor's technicians on Blythe in relation to the start of production is completed. This is also confirmed in yesterday's RNS.
No rig-move activities for NHDeul. Again yesterday's RNS indicated end of the month, maybe even mid April.
It sounds logical to me that such a rig-move is influenced by tidal influences (which can be very strong in this area) and logistics. You simply need to pick the right moment to move a JU rig to very close proximity of a platform. And then only after all the seabed remedial work is completed and 3 beds of rock are dumped and levelled in order for the JU legs to "stand" on it.
The offshore support vessel GEO Ocean III was at Southwark yesterday and is now moving at a very slow speed in a westerly direction (towards Blythe?) This could indicate subsea survey work with an ROV on the bottom.
I realy look forward to the next RNS (on Monday??)
Have a nice weekend
Good to read that a solid base for future gas sales has been established.
And also good to read that my guesswork in a previous post is most probably true !
It has indeed been a long haul since I became involved in IOG and its predecessors EELI & MOST.
But all is well that ends well!
GLA
Good afternoon,
The WtW vessel Acta Orion left the Blythe location and has been moored in Hull since yesterday.
This could mean that the preparation work on Blythe by IOG and contractor's technicians is completed.
And that could mean that the backgassing and start of production is imminent. The next RNS from IOG will tell.
There are still no rig-move activities seen at the Noble Hans Deul JU-rig.
At Southwark an offshore support vessel (Geo Ocean III) is alongside the platform. This vessel brings ROV services and has a large A-frame at the stern. This is normally used to launch large work-class ROV's or other sunsea tools
It could even be a levelling tool to prepare the seabed after rockdumping for the arrival of the rig
All guesswork from my side off course, I am looking forward to more information friom IOG.
Yesterday there was a vessel around Southwark that could not be identified by normal Marine Traffic users. The position and other information was received via satelite and I do not have a subscription to that service.
But maybe it was a rockdumping vessel? Again: guesswork from my side.
Have a nice day and a good weekend.
Good morning,
The WtW vessel Acta Orion is heading for Hull.
Job done at Blythe? Or just a crew change or cargo run? Time will tell. I'll keep an eye out.
In the meantime no rig-move activities at the NHDeul and no rockdumping activities at Southwark.
Have a nice day!
Aligator,
Great plan and count me in!
Wrt donations: done so already yesterday in a Dutch benefit program, but will do so again in a joint IOG shareholders donation!
Dunderhead, from my experience as tow-master and some time as rig-move coordinator with a major Dutch gas company I know that:
- For every rigmove in the O&G industry in the North Sea a rigmove plan is made
- This has always included a soil sampling & survey and report (soil quality, expected leg penetration, etc.)
- And these plans were always reviewd and approved by the Marine Warranty Surveyors
I assume that these steps were carried out here as well.
But scouring is a strange phenomenon, apparently it does not always happen, but when it starts, it accelerates.
I know of scour "holes" behind windfarm monopiles of 7 meters deep. That is 1/3 of the total monoplile penetration.
Therefore your comment on risk, risk assessment, probability of occurance is valid and must have been looked at and accepted as an acceptable risk.
And then bad-luck struck and it actually happened.
I also agree with your comment on remedial work: was this already included and planned for in the rig-move plans or did it surprise everybody?
In my days as rig-move coordinator I cannot remember that scour remedial work on this scale was ever mentioned.
Earlier as Master on a supply vessel we have done some scour protection by simply dumping bags with stones over the stern of a supply vessel ner the legs of a JU rig to prevent further scouring.
Again, I do hope for some better communication and transparancy from the BoD.