Wednesday 7 March 2018

Oil Spill Response Limited’s (OSRL) latest development in subsea well capping technology, Offset Installation Equipment (OIE), was officially launched on Tuesday March 6th 2018 from the equipment’s new home base in Trieste, Italy.

The well-attended event, which featured key figures from across the offshore industry, represented the culmination of six years’ work between members of the Subsea Well Intervention Project (SWRP), OSRL and leading oil and gas engineering specialists, Saipem.

Designed specifically for scenarios where direct vertical access to a well-head is not possible, the new OIE enables well capping or related equipment to be rapidly installed at a safe distance from an incident for the first time. OIE is now available to existing OSRL members through a Subsea Well Intervention Services (SWIS) supplementary agreement and current OIE members include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Petrobras, Shell, Statoil and Total – all of which represent the founding members of SWRP.

OIE equipment can be deployed up to 500m from an incident site and is suitable for use at a working depth of 75 to 600 metres. Importantly, OIE is also fully compatible with OSRL’s capping equipment, creating an end-to-end capping and containment solution suitable for almost all subsea scenarios.

In line with OSRL’s approach, each member organisation will be provided with training to enable their own experienced personnel to understand the capabilities of the system and operate the OIE during an incident. Following the end of SWRP, the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) through the Well Experts Committee (WEC) will work with OSRL to ensure that all stakeholders gain awareness of OIE’s capabilities as part of the process of promoting the adoption of good practice worldwide.