Shell responds to BOEM

Fills in some additional details for company’s Chukchi Sea exploration plan

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

Shell has responded to a request from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, for additional information relating to the company’s latest Chukchi Sea exploration plan. The company, with hopes of restarting its Chukchi Sea drilling campaign in the summer of 2014, had filed a revised exploration plan in early November. BOEM subsequently sent the company a list of additional information it needs before deeming the plan complete and ready for release for public comment.

Peter Voser, the company’s CEO, has recently said that Shell is preparing to drill in the Chukchi in 2014 or 2015 but has not yet made a final drilling decision.

Permits needed

The exploration plan envisages the drillship Noble Discoverer completing a well in the Burger prospect, about 80 miles offshore the western end of the North Slope, as part of a program to drill up to six wells over a time span of three years. The Discoverer drilled the top-hole section of that first Burger well during the open water season of 2012. Shell also drilled a top-hole section of a well in its Beaufort Sea Sivulliq prospect in the same drilling season but the company has no immediate plans to return to the Beaufort.

Following damage to Kulluk, Shell’s Arctic floating drilling platform, during a grounding incident in the Gulf of Alaska at the end of 2012, Shell has decided to scrap that drilling vessel. And so, to ensure the presence of a backup rig for the drilling of a relief well in the unlikely event of a well blowout, Shell has contacted the use of a semi-submersible drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer. According to the revised exploration plan, Shell will position the Polar Pioneer and some support vessels at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands during the Chukchi Sea drilling.

Noble Discoverer

Shell has responded by referring BOEM to the integrated operations plan, which spells out a list of modifications made to the Noble Discoverer since 2012. Noble Drilling Corp. owns and operates the Noble Discoverer, under contract with Shell.

Maintenance and upgrades

Improvements include a sponson extension to shift the vessel’s center of gravity aft, thus improving the vessel’s yaw characteristics, the integrated operations plan says. All walkways on the vessel have been coated with a non-skid finish and some railing heights have been increased. The bilge system was reconfigured “in conjunction with the new main engine,” the plan says. Other safety-related modifications include a new structure that allows escape from the lowest level of the main engine room in the event of a fire.

Modifications to improve crew comfort in cold conditions include new and upgraded steam heating systems, additional thermal insulation on some internal areas of the hull and some new external windbreaks, the integrated operations plan says.

In response to a request from BOEM for an explanation for the engine failures in the Aiviq at the start of a chain of events that led to the grounding of the Kulluk in 2012, Shell offered to supply the agency with copies of the various U.S. Coast Guard certifications and documents for the vessel. The Aiviq, a new Arctic anchor handling vessel under charter to Shell, had been towing the Kulluk prior to the grounding.

Oil containment system

As part of its drilling fleet, Shell has self-contained offshore oil spill response capabilities. The company also has arrangements for coastline spill response, should that prove necessary.

Blowout preventer testing

In its response to BOEM, Shell said that the pressure testing procedure that the company now proposes in the Chukchi — pressure testing every 14 days, with a function test every seven days — is consistent with the way in which industry conducts blowout preventer testing in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Standardizing the frequency of the pressure test to concur with the Gulf of Mexico will reduce wear on the BOP sealing elements, enhancing rather than degrading BOP reliability,” Shell told BOEM.

Air emissions data

Shell explains its contractor management

In a newly filed integrated operations plan, required by Interior in conjunction with Shell’s planned continuation of drilling in the Chukchi Sea, the company has spelled out a series of contractor-management procedures.

The plan says that Shell will use what it refers to as a “control framework” for overall management of the various contractors that will be engaged in the multifarious activities required to conduct and support a drilling operation in the Arctic offshore.

Evolving with experience

“Building on Arctic operating experience since 2006, Alaska has become a center of Arctic operating experience within Shell,” the plan says.

A single integrated activity plan will drive the massive operation involved in conducting and supporting drilling in the Chukchi. The plan will be supplemented by procedures for managing project changes; achieving continuous improvement; and managing health, safety and environmental risks, Shell says.

A Shell “contract owner” for each contract will assume responsibility for the contract, while a “contract holder” will take responsibility for the contractor’s performance, the integrated operations plan says.

An assurance committee, headed by Shell’s executive vice president for the Arctic, will oversee safety assurance activities such as audits and inspections.

Other procedures for managing contractors include the use of required contractor qualifications; readiness audits and reviews; table-top exercises; and conferences with contractors, to select contractors and assure contractor readiness for the field operations, the integrated operations plan says.

—Alan Bailey