Client
Independent oil and gas exploration and production company
Location
Offshore West Africa
Asset type
Drillship
Overview
In February 2020, LR (now Vysus Group) completed its eighth successive drillship Positioning QC project offshore West Africa for our client, an Independent oil and gas exploration and production company, undertaken entirely remotely with no personnel mobilised onboard or in-country.
LR (now Vysus Group) has been providing drillship positioning QC services to the client since 2018, supporting the Stena Forth drillship. Our Positioning QC service ensures that the drillship sets up at the right offshore location and that the subsea well is constructed in the correct place, generally to an absolute accuracy of better than ±5m in water depths in excess of 1,500m.
Remote Positioning Quality Control
Errors in positioning are one of the key risks in deepwater drilling. Traditionally, the Positioning QC scope involves mobilising personnel and freighting equipment to the drillship for each programmed rig-move.
To provide a remote unmanned service, we deployed IRIS , our proprietary web mapping application, advanced digital data services and our V-Node data hub, which consists of GPS, heading, satellite communication and data telemetry systems. Once installed on the drillship, the V-NODE is operated entirely remotely.
In 2018, the drillship's permanently mobilised positioning systems were initially calibrated, verified and interfaced to the V-NODE onboard. All internal and external sensor data was thereafter streamed in real time to the IRIS cloud from where it is displayed within the IRIS web map application. A dedicated IRIS rig positioning module allows comprehensive quality control to be undertaken remotely by the project manager, based in the UK, in Aberdeen.
Removing Cost and Risk
This approach provided a high quality, innovative and cost-effective solution to our client, removing cost and risk associated with mobilising personnel to West Africa. Against the backdrop of COVID-19 related travel restrictions and health concerns, the latest project was successfully completed and clearly demonstrated the value of an entirely remote service, removing the mobilisation of this fundamental service from the critical path of a rig move.
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