Decommissioning

Decommissioning

SolstenXP provides specialized decommissioning services including well plugging and abandonment, site restoration, platform removal and pipeline abandonment.  These services are offered on both turnkey and T&M basis to industry and state and federal agencies.  Our approach to this work is particularly results-focused and offers the industry a cost and operationally effective way to discharge the liability of aging suspended wells and infrastructure.  To date, SolstenXP has plugged and abandoned over 150 onshore and offshore wells and decommissioned three (3) platforms for industry, all to the satisfaction of the owners and applicable State and Federal agencies.

Decommissioning Project Examples

Subsea Well Abandonment Rig Sharing (SWARS) Program
SolstenXP was the management contractor for the SWARS Program, which successfully plugged and abandoned 23 subsea wells in California state waters off the coast of Santa Barbara County. This work was performed for a consortium of six oil companies who coordinated their individual P&A projects through a multi-operator agreement for the purpose of sharing a jackup rig and support equipment, minimizing environmental impacts, and controlling costs.

As the management contractor, SolstenXP was tasked with facilitating this coordination, final permitting, rig selection and mobilization, contracting for services, program scheduling, field supervision, public interface, regulatory compliance, reporting and interaction with SWARS Management Committee.
Program execution work included preliminary site surveys and wellhead inspection, removal of pipeline segments, preparation of wellheads for re-entry, well P&A work, recovery of seafloor debris, and salvage and/or disposal of recovered wellhead and pipeline components.
The fieldwork utilized an Adriatic Class jackup rig (mobilized from West Africa) and required the extensive use of divers, remotely operated vehicles, precision navigation equipment and various marine services.  The SWARS Program field work was completed one month ahead of schedule, and the entire program cost was approximately $5MM below budget.

Emergency Well Abandonment and Island Decommissioning
This project consisted of the emergency abandonment of two wells situated on a manmade gravel island in the Beaufort Sea.  The island was damaged by late fall storms resulting in severe erosion of the island gravel.  The work included construction of a floating ice road to access the island after freeze-up, mobilization of equipment and the physical abandonment of the wells under Arctic winter conditions.  After top plugs were set, all casing strings were explosively severed below the island base and recovered using a vibratory hammer.  SolstenXP engineered the job, obtained all permits and was responsible for all field operations.  During the following open water season, SolstenXP teamed with a heavy civil contractor to decommission the island.  This work included the removal of seawater intake and discharge lines and the removal of linked concrete mat slope protection and gravel.

Multiple Well Abandonments Followed by Island Decommissioning
Subsequent to the emergency winter well abandonment above, four wells located on a separate man made offshore island in the Beaufort Sea were abandoned the following summer.  The work required a marine (barge) mobilization and demobilization of equipment.  The down hole procedures were much the same as in the Emergency Well Abandonment above, using explosives and vibratory hammer for final removal of severed casing strings.  SolstenXP performed the work on a turnkey basis and was responsible for all regulatory matters, engineering and project execution.  Once the wells were abandoned, SolstenXP participated in the island decommissioning as discussed above.

Cook Inlet Pipeline Abandonment

The project involved the final decommissioning of an out-of-service 10" pipeline in Cook Inlet. SolstenXP was the general contractor for BP and managed all marine services for the job. Work tasks included the construction and installation of subsea pig launchers, diving operations along the pipeline, marine surveys, construction of a 3,000 bbl temporary tank farm to receive pipeline flushing fluids and hot tapping of selected line locations for vacuum removal of fluids.