Abstract
Abstract
Rig-less activities, such as well-work, stimulation and testing (S&T) in bp Block 61, in Oman, often include rig-ups that typically involve lifting wide and heavy loads. These activities, if not mitigated against, can pose significant safety risks, such as dropped objects and suspended loads. The team's main safety objective was to eliminate as many risks as possible while executing these activities. Therefore, intensive focus was placed on the well testing package, as it is present in most of routine rig less well operations in Block 61. As a result, a major improvement to the package design was identified and implemented in Q2 2021, by "trailerizing" routine intervention resources, including well testing equipment and service camp.
Furthermore, at the start of the rig less journey in Block 61, each service provider supplied their own logistical resources. These resources included cranes, forklifts, flat-bed trucks and prime movers. However, this often led to multiple unnecessary vehicles on site, introducing the risk of congestion on the well site. Adding to that, having non-necessary vehicles previously caused collision incidents. To mitigate said risks, the team introduced the logistic hub concept, where each service provider utilized the relevant vehicles whenever required, instead of supplying their own. This initiative had further reduced congestion on site and ultimately lowered the probability of collisions and incidents.
Consequently, the new design resulted in 85% reduction of lifting activities. This led to minimal utilization of cranes and forklifts, which resulted in lower fuel consumption and ultimately lower indirect carbon emissions. Operational and capital efficiency were also improved as rig up / rig down durations have been approximately halved, and minimum time would be wasted on waiting for a forklift or crane. Due to the optimization of the logistic resources, there are no longer any idle vehicles on site, which reduced the emissions, as well as decreased the third-party costs associated to logistics. The unique aspect of this initiative is that a single supplier provides all required vehicles to the site as per demand directly with no commitment necessary. Having a single supplier provided stronger control of work in terms of lifting plans and procedures.
The rigid bp safety process guidelines ensured that all challenges and optimization opportunities were fulfilled in a safe manner. The purpose of this paper is to detail how the team pushed the technical envelope to introduce such initiatives and share the journey entailing the improvements made to achieve an inherently safer environment.