As the planned start date for Shell’s drilling in the Chukchi Sea approaches, the company has been positioning the various components of its drilling fleet, in readiness to move into action.
The Noble Discoverer, the drillship earmarked for the Chukchi drilling, has arrived in Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands and the Kulluk, the floating drilling platform that Shell plans to use in the Beaufort Sea, is expected to arrive at the same port in the next four days, Shell spokesman Curtis Smith told Petroleum News in a July 9 email.
Smith said that Shell’s new ice-class anchor handler, the Aiviq, is towing the Kulluk.
But an unusually large amount of early summer sea-ice in the Chukchi Sea will prevent Shell from starting its drilling in July, as sanctioned in the company’s approved exploration plan.
“Ice cover remains more significant than we have seen for the last 10 years,” Smith said. “As a result of the persistent ice that remains over our prospects we are re-calibrating our drilling expectations and plan to commence work around the first week of August.”
Although Shell’s drilling and support vessels are ice capable, the company has previously said that it will not drill in sea-ice conditions.
Barge certification
Shell also still needs permits to drill from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE. And apparently the issue of those permits is contingent on the certification by the U.S. Coast Guard of the Arctic Challenger, the barge that Shell plans to use to carry its new oil spill containment system. The company plans to station the barge around the midpoint between its Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea operations, ready to move to a drilling site in the unlikely event of a well blowout.
In addition to the containment system, designed to gather oil from a spilling well, Shell is deploying a new well capping stack, based on technology used to stop oil flowing from BP’s Macondo well following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
BSEE inspected the containment and capping systems in Seattle on June 25.
The Arctic Challenger requires certification because the barge has been undergoing a retrofit to hold Shell’s containment system.
Change of standard
Cmdr. Christopher O’Neil of the U.S. Coast Guard told Petroleum News July 11 that in December the Coast Guard had accepted a proposal by Shell for certification of the barge under the standards for a floating production installation. However, on July 9 the company had proposed that the certification should instead come under the standards for a mobile offshore drilling unit.
Smith said that Superior Energy, operator of the containment system, with advice from the American Bureau of Shipping, had recognized that the mobile offshore drilling unit standard would be more appropriate than the production installation standard, given “the flexibility, mobility and agility needed for such a unique response vessel.”
O’Neil said that the Coast Guard needs to assess whether the proposed standard is applicable to the vessel’s intended use, and then determine whether the vessel meets the standard. Essentially the characteristics of the mooring systems are critical to the certification of a fixed production installation, while the structure of the vessel itself is more critical to a mobile unit that would move out of the path of a particularly severe storm, O’Neil said.
As part of its certification procedure the Coast Guard has also identified some mechanical issues, such as deficient welds and piping issues, that need to be fixed on the barge, although issues of this type are typical of a retrofit situation, O’Neil said.
Inspectors available
O’Neil said that the Coast Guard is making inspectors available to move ahead with the certification but that he does not anticipate “significant movement” in achieving the certification until after July 20.
“There are no shortcuts here,” O’Neil said, reflecting the overriding importance of conducting a thorough inspection and vessel certification.
Although a continuing delay in the certification of the Arctic Challenger could impact the start of Shell’s drilling, Shell sees the ice situation in the Chukchi as the more significant factor at the moment in any delay to the company’s plans, Smith said.
