Claxton Celebrates 10 Years of Progress Since World’s First Rigless Platform Well Abandonment

Claxton Engineering Services Ltd, a member of the Acteon Group’s risers, conductors and flowlines business, has celebrated the 10th anniversary of its success with the world’s first rigless platform well abandonment and continues to set new standards in engineering innovation.

In the 10 years since its feat at the Perenco Well A1 in the Leman field, southern North Sea, UK, Claxton has become the North Sea’s preeminent riser supplier and launched an expanding range of product, process and running tool innovations. The company has also been involved in decommissioning more than 60 North Sea platform wells, in most cases without using a drilling rig or platform crane. In total, the Claxton decommissioning tooling spread has been used on more than 260 successful well abandonment and conductor removal projects.

Claxton has also achieved significant geographical expansion since 2003, having opened new facilities in Norway, Singapore and the Middle East. Today, the company can select from more than 4,000 items of rapid call-off stock and swiftly design new components to meet urgent operational challenges.

For that first rigless abandonment project, Claxton used a custom conductor reaction recovery system designed and manufactured specifically to interface with the Leman platform and to retrieve and handle well trees and tubulars. Its full casing recovery package was also required. The SABRE™ abrasive water jet cutting system played a key role and has since been used on many significant abandonment campaigns.

When the Leman Abandonment was completed, calculations showed that the overall cost of the project, as conducted by Claxton and Acteon sister company InterAct, was less than 50 percent of an equivalent rig-based solution. The Perenco Well A1 proved to be a game-changer with the introduction of pioneering technical solutions that have since become commonplace.

Laura Claxton, Managing Director, Claxton said, “A strong track record is important, but we are looking to the future. We have ambitious plans for growing our decommissioning capabilities to meet the needs of our clients. For instance, enhancements to our SWAT™ suspended well abandonment tool and the SABRE™ abrasive water jet cutting system will enable us to cut and abandon deeper wells. At the same time, we anticipate a significant increase in equipment spread and offshore crew numbers that will widen both our service capacity and our footprint.”

Press Release, November 28, 2013