Neodrill and ICON Engineering drilling innovation wins 1st Australian contract

Name: ICON Engineering
Address: Level 16, The Forrest Centre, 221 St Georges Terrace, Perth, 6000, Western Australia
Telephone: +61 8 6313 5500

Neodrill and ICON Engineering drilling innovation wins 1st Australian contract

Wins subsea wellhead foundation installation contract for deepwater Woodside well
CAN-ductor saves drilling days, reduces operational and environmental risks

A Norwegian-Australian partnership has won its first Australasian contract after securing a subsea wellhead foundation contract for Woodside Energy's Ferrand exploration well in the Carnarvon Basin.

Norway's Neodrill AS and Perth-based ICON Engineering Pty Ltd have teamed up to rent and install Neodrill's patented suction-based Conductor Anchor Node, the CAN-ductor, as a cost-saving drilling initiative for exploration wells and production wells.

The Ferrand well is located in around 1500 m water depth in Block WA-404-P, approximately 260 km NW from Dampier, Western Australia, and is scheduled to be drilled in the second quarter of 2018.

The CAN-ductor offers a novel, patented approach of installing a subsea wellhead foundation and was developed in order to pre-install drilling conductors with anchor handling or light construction vessels instead of more costly drilling rigs, thereby significantly reducing drilling and fleet costs as well as risk.

The CAN-ductor, Neodrill’s base product, is in principle a combination of a specially designed suction anchor and a centrally placed single length of conductor. The advantages of the system are that it gives a strong well foundation with verified load capacity with reduced operational and technical risk.

ICON Managing Director David Field said pre-installing a Neodrill CAN-ductor with a light vessel instead of a drilling rig would mean cutting days from the rig time required to safely drill offshore wells.

Neodrill_ICON Conductor Anchor Node is an accepted north sea conductor supporting technology

The Conductor Anchor Node (CAN) is an accepted North Sea conductor supporting technology

“The CAN-ductor’s ability to be deployed by a less expensive vessel, such as an Anchor Handling (AHTS) or Construction Support Vessel (CSV) means the operator’s drilling budget can be reduced, whether they are exploration or production wells.”

“This is in addition to the higher operational and accidental well load capacities, fatigue risk mitigation and reduced environmental footprint,” he said.

Since 2000, Neodrill has experience on numerous offshore projects using various installation techniques, which led it to develop the Conductor Anchor Node design.

“The CAN-ductor has proven to save 3-4 rig days including plugging and abandonment (P&A) operations,” said Neodrill Chief Executive Officer Jostein Aleksandersen.

CANductor v conductor.jpg

The CAN-ductor offers many benefits over traditional well designs

The suction anchor is used for pushing the centre conduit into the seabed and for providing necessary top support for the conductor.

For exploration wells, the CAN can be removed and re-used, hence the rental option being offered.

“We are very happy having secured our first project with Woodside together with ICON, and are very optimistic for the future” said Mr Aleksandersen.

He said it was a logical tie up for Neodrill to partner with ICON, which has a 20 year history of offshore installations and innovative engineering solutions.

A CAN-ductor Installation Sequence can be seen at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsjWWS4NvRg

CAN under fabrication 500