Failure Analysis & Failure Investigation

Complete Field Integrity Project including wells, gathering lines, and facilities.  Corrosion and Chemical Optimization and Development of a Viking Proprietary Tool for integrity.

HPHT Well Design Support

Quality Assurance, Failure Analysis Work, Well Delivery Processes, Well Design

HPHT Well Design Support

Unconventional Plays, Horizontal Wells, Failure Analysis Work, Quality Assurance Work, Rig Operations

Unconventional Plays, Quality Assurance, Rig Operations, Mill Surveillance

Unconventional Plays, Quality Assurance, Rig Operations, Mill Surveillance

Unconventional Plays, Horizontal Wells, Failure Analysis Work, Quality Assurance Work, Rig Operations

Unconventional Plays, Horizontal Wells, Failure Analysis Work, Quality Assurance Work, Rig Operations

Well Engineering HPHT

Material Selection for acid gas injection wells in west Texas. Materials Selection included production tubing, production casing, packer, production liner, Xtree and wellhead equipment.

CRA materials selection for production Liner for packer-less well designs in  West Texas CO2 floods

Materials Selection for new well completion to include casing, and tubing. Corrosion Models were developed for these type wells using state-of-art software and modeling techniques

An independent oil operator experienced four back-to-back casing failures in his Oklahoma shale program. These current failures and setbacks were eating into his budget and eroding stakeholder faith in the ability to complete wells.

His initial comment was, “I’m not getting any sleep – I need some help. You’ve got to help me stop the leaks!”

Led study for independent oil and gas operator regarding the injection of flue gases from Gulf coast power plants to a Deepwater development for the purposes of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This considered pretreatment and processing requirements for flue gases from natural gas-fired boiler plants, natural gas combined cycle plants, coal-fired boiler plants and integrated gasification combined cycle plants. Key issues considered were the ability of the pretreatment system to remove oxygen and water.

GATE was responsible for developing the overall Aseng Water Injection System Basis of Design.

GATE was requested to determine the potential risks involved in waterflood for the Neptune and Shenzi fields as a means to determine whether waterflood was a viable option for enhanced oil recovery. Based on this, GATE developed a waterflood philosophy document that details the problems and possible mitigation procedures for BHP’s use in determining whether or not to waterflood.

GATE provided in-house production chemistry support for the Horn Mountain, Atlantis and Thunder Horse assets.

GATE undertook a chemical vendor qualification process on behalf of Noble to procure the best suited chemical and chemical support for both the Aseng and Alen assets based on their fluids, and system along with their specific operational needs.

GATE leverages each chemical vendors based on performance of chemical, lab, ability to meet supply demands and upsets, price, experience and key criteria important to contractor and operator.

GATE undertook a rigorous qualification process on behalf of the client to BHP to procure the best suited chemicals and chemical support for both the Neptune and Shenzi assets based on their fluids, and system along with their specific operational needs.

BP Pipeline oversees the operation of 9 total oil and gas export systems from more than 20 different platforms in the GoM. The pipeline systems transport almost half-million barrels of oil and hundreds of MMSCF of gas daily from the producing platforms to onshore processing facilities.

The FAMP has been developed for BP Pipeline assets to ensure proper working of the high volume systems by organizing and delegating between operators, facilities, laboratories and onshore offices. By facilitating the review of system performance and operation, this information provides the basis of a continuous improvement approach.

As part of the scope of work, GATE was commissioned to develop two comprehensive, user-friendly screening tools to guide subsea flowline materials selection decisions for wet gas and waterflood during concept selection and design using field specific data.

GATE undertook an investigation into recovered, decommissioned equipment to determine both the cause of failure and investigate integrity of components that may not have failed. This information has proven invaluable to operators who can base the performance of other equipment of a similar type and construction in a similar environment. This was significant as the recovered materials ranged from the mud-line, to sea surface and topsides.

GATE provides Shell with cathodic protection design support for all their subsea projects. This includes coating selection (anti-corrosion and flow assurance) and qualification, which also involves interfacing with the coating yard. An important aspect of this operation is carrying out comprehensive quality audits of anode foundries and coating plants around the world.

GATE determined the risks and mitigation of risk associated with wet parking and flooding of a gas export pipeline with unfiltered seawater. The key concerns are corrosion due to microbes, oxygen corrosion, and drying to prevent hydrate formation when the pipe goes into service.

GATE undertook erosion and corrosion modeling in the flowline to develop sand production allowance and an erosion corrosion risk assessment. From this, a maximum rate of gas production that will allow the asset to maintain it design life was determined. This enabled the operator to safely increase production by 25% to without additional risk to the asset thereby increasing the Net Present Value of the asset.

GATE was responsible for formulating a detailed flow assurance strategy for the successful operation of Juniper production system. The project involved extensive cross-functional interaction, detailed study of the lessons learnt from similar fields in the region (offshore Trinidad), simulating a wide variety of what-if scenarios (both steady state and transient) to draft the flow assurance strategy and operability logic for optimized production.