Fugro supports BP’s Trinidad & Tobago operations

Fugro has provided a wide range of services to BP Trinidad and Tobago (bpTT) which allow drilling and completion of five subsea wells in an area of strong currents.

According to Fugro’s press release from Wednesday, the services include wellhead motion (fatigue) monitoring, metocean measurements and positioning services.

Fugro said that the positioning activities were carried out on three supporting anchor handling tugs, one of which had subsea acoustic ROV positioning, and onboard the drilling vessel.

The company also provided BP with dimensional control survey services, DGNSS verification, gyro-compass calibration and offset measurements, navigation at the well locations, and final positioning of the drilling vessel within the required tolerance of 3 meters.

Fugro said that such precision was required due to cluster drilling and because of accommodation for subsea Xmas trees. Survey support was provided for anchor handling and ROV operations as well as for subsea asset positioning.

The monitoring of subsea equipment was enabled through Fugro’s wellhead and riser instrumentation service (WARIS) at two subsea locations.

Motion measurements provided BP with real-time wellhead fatigue tracking. Midway through the program, the recorded data was used to update theoretical fatigue and improve fatigue life of wellhead components, Fugro said.

Fugro also added that it installed an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler on the seabed for metocean measurements. Current measurements were relayed to the vessel in real time using the same hydroacoustic equipment as with the WARIS.

bpTT Drilling Engineer, Anil Saisbhan said: “The additional non-traditional services from Fugro with the WARIS and real-time ADCP measurements have enabled us to realize more fatigue life of wellhead components than was theoretically suggested, as well as to mitigate against operational risk with high currents which occur sporadically in the area.”

Fugro Trinidad Country Manager, Neil Bissoon, stated: “This project demonstrates another of the major advantages that Fugro can bring to operators. We delivered a cost-effective solution to bpTT’s drilling project by sharing synergistic support functions across three major services.”