Latin America’s biggest economy is emerging as a leader
in deepwater oil exploration.
Billed as Brazil’s 'crude awakening',
the boom is impressive.
But safely drilling wells far below the ocean’s surface
to unlock the energy resources the world needs
can be costly and technically demanding.
Suheyl Ozyigit is the well delivery manager
for Shell’s BC-10 project, also known as Parque das Conchas.
His team orchestrated a major feat in deepwater history
by delivering seven deepwater wells
with world-class construction times and safety performance.
This was accomplished 132 days ahead of an already ambitious plan.
The BC-10 field is located in the Campos Basin off Brazil,
in ultra deepwater offshore from the city of Vitoria.
The field was discovered in 2002 and is being developed
in three phases using the compact Noble Bully II rig.
Unlike phases 1 and 2,
the oil and gas in phase 3 lie in small, scattered pockets
making them harder to access.
But using the latest in drilling technology
offered a solution.
Steve Jones was the lead well engineer
for BC-10 phase 3.
I think fairly early on
people started to get a taste of what the rig was capable of
and were starting to guess that this might come in
quicker than expected.
That forecast was initially hidden behind significant barriers.
One of the key ones for me was trying to land
in such thin reservoirs, 3-5 metres thick in places
and not continuous either,
and then geosteering through those
to protect the net-to-gross for subsurface to increase
the ultimate recoveries of these wells.
It wasn't the only hurdle.
Normally when you drill wells in batches,
the safety device called a blowout preventer
- or BOP in short -
is pulled to surface to move it to the next well.
This is considered one of the most time-intensive operations
on a deepwater drilling rig.
In phase 3, the team made additional preparations to the BOP,
allowing them to safely deploy it just once
and keep it submerged for almost 6 months
so it could protect one well directly after the other
while maintaining operational and functional integrity.
If you think that pulling the BOP and then rerunning it again
is about a seven-day exercise,
and we would have to have done that in between the seven wells,
you’re looking at about six weeks’ worth of work
which we were able to forgo.
Another factor in the project’s speed
was maximizing the Bully II’s multipurpose tower.
The tower accelerated progress by allowing
preparatory work and drilling to occur simultaneously
on both sides of the tower.
Once the momentum started, it was unstoppable.
We set our goal that we were going to do this project
faster than any rig in the world
within the first couple of weeks.
But by all accounts,
the key factor in BC-10’s safety and speed
was the team spirit.
Without a doubt it’s the people
the people have made the difference within the whole project
of the BC-10 phase and the Noble Bully II.
This rig has lots of technical aspects
that are different from other rigs.
But still, without the right team on board,
nothing we did here could’ve been done.
What started as uncharted territory will no doubt become a map
for safe and efficient deepwater drilling in the future.