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New ship to support Shell drilling dison Chouest vessel to handle anchors for Arctic offshore rig, provide 100 jobs, feature many environmental safeguards By Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Because of pending court challenges, Shell is having a heck of a time getting its offshore drilling campaign under way in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska.
But the company continues making big investments for the day its drill bits start turning.
The latest example is a contract for construction of a powerful boat designed to handle the anchors of offshore drilling platforms in the icy Beaufort and Chukchi seas, where Shell has dropped billions of dollars on federal oil and gas leases.
The new boat, not yet under construction, doesn’t have a name at this point, just a number — hull number 247.
Once built — about a two-year job — the boat will be one of the most advanced and environmentally sound anchor-handling tug supply vessels ever launched for work in the Arctic, said managers for Shell and for the builder.
“It’ll be the pride vessel of our company,” said Capt. Michael Terminel, Alaska operations chief for Edison Chouest Offshore, the Louisiana firm that will build and run the 247 under long-term charter to Shell.
Navigating the law Construction of the new anchor handler will help Shell better cope with federal law pertaining to commercial ships working in U.S. waters.
When Shell first planned to drill in the Beaufort Sea in the summer of 2007, it brought in foreign-flagged anchor handlers to support two offshore drilling platforms.
Normally, foreign vessels can’t work between U.S. ports — or between a port and an offshore drilling rig — under what’s known as the Jones Act.
Congress, however, wrote a temporary exception into the Safe Port Act of 2006, which said an oil company may use a foreign-flagged vessel “for the setting, relocation, or recovery of anchors or other mooring equipment of a mobile offshore drilling unit” on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Beaufort or Chukchi seas.
The exemption potentially is available through 2011, enough time for Shell to construct something in very short supply: an American-built anchor handler fit for work in the Arctic, said Rick Fox, a Shell manager in Anchorage.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, Fox said the 247 is a $150 million project.
“Certainly this shows our commitment to investing in the Arctic,” Fox told Petroleum News on June 15.
Some boat The 247 will perform a key job — managing the heavy anchors and mooring lines of Shell’s drilling platform. It’s a job that requires a lot of lifting horsepower and constant vigilance, especially amid the shifting ice of the Arctic Ocean.
Because the boat will be a qualified Jones Act vessel, it will offer more versatility than foreign-flagged craft because it can be used to haul supplies between U.S. ports and the rig, said Kate Miner, head of logistics for Shell in Alaska.
Under the latest plans Shell has submitted to industry regulators, it aims to use a drillship to bore one exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea next year, followed by a single well in the Chukchi Sea, also in 2010. The drillship, the Frontier Discoverer, currently is working in the South China Sea, Fox said.
According to an Edison Chouest specification sheet, the 247 will be 342 feet long with “capability to break level, first-year sheet ice of a nominal thickness.” The vessel will have 64 bunks, a deck for landing a Sikorsky S-92 or similar-sized helicopter, four Caterpillar C280-12 diesel engines and two propellers.
For lifting, the vessel will have winches that are stronger than necessary for the relatively shallow waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi. Fox said that will give the boat the ability to compete for jobs elsewhere in the world such as the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, where both Shell and Edison Chouest are very active.
Not least is the 247’s many environmental features to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, minimize noise that can disturb marine mammals and prevent leaks and spills. The vessel will be double-hulled, and the hull will be painted a cool blue at the request of North Slope subsistence hunters who believe louder colors such as orange can scare away whales, Fox said.
Chouest in Alaska Edison Chouest (pronounced shwest) is a global builder and operator of industrial work boats and research vessels. Founded in Galliano, La., in 1960, the company touts itself as “the most technologically advanced and fastest-growing offshore vessel service company in the world.”
Chouest has established a considerable presence in Alaska. Two years ago it built the Nanuq, a 300-foot oil spill response boat for Shell’s Arctic exploration. That vessel is now working for a different company in Trinidad pending the start of drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi, Terminel said.
Another Chouest boat, the 279-foot anchor handler Dove, in early 2007 towed the huge X-band offshore radar platform from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to Adak in the Aleutian Islands. The radar is part of the U.S. missile defense program.
Chouest also is partners with Fairweather International Inc. on the Deadhorse Aviation Center on the North Slope.
Terminel, a veteran of numerous icebreaker expeditions to Antarctica, said no company is better suited for work in the Arctic than Chouest. The 247, he said, will provide around 100 jobs.
“We’re really pushing hard to crew it with Alaskans,” Terminel said.
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