Miller decommissioning - the story

Miller represents one of our biggest projects in BP in the North Sea countless people were associated with the project and in that we've been able to produce 350 million barrels of oil it's a large platform 28,000 tonne topside 17,000 tons acket it's been shut in since 2007 so it's really about how do we finish the decommissioning of that asset I do believe we've been able to come up with a formula that'll be successful in this Basin I look forward to working with the contractors as we look to evolve you take the lessons learned from Miller and use it as we move forward with decommissioning activities not only for BP but the broader base [Music] we had petrol fighters our third party duty holder and you know that load Petrofac then to can operate the platform while the removal contractor Saipan was able to concentrate and focus on you know just on the kind of removal and the heavy lift activities within the Miller context a lot of the challenge was to operate safely within the legal framework that they were obviously gone with but to ensure that we were efficient as possible so we tried another gate that as efficiently as we could planning is was the major part of the of their campaign where they're a team dedicated to all the planning to ensure the old campaign was smooth we did some workshops we got people around the table with banged heads together and people sort of came out understanding right we need to align around a common mission a common goal there's been a process from shutting down the platform and making it hydrocarbon free to the point where you are able to remove it the solution we tested primarily was a reverse installation or a single lift the engineering of those lifts is very challenging because the the lift will be in the cranes for a number of hours while we transit back to shore in the beginning of 2017 we started our preparation work so the final separation of modules and converting the platform from a manned facility to an unmanned facility and we had a little bit of time left that we could actually make a run on a module if for one transit to shore [Music] we managed to remove the em1 accommodation module and the Ella deck safely it was a good start but we knew that we had something much bigger ahead of us so we chose Saipem and 7000 for our contractor to do the Miller removal great vessel it's probably one of three vessels in the world that could do this type of work a very experienced team they knew the vessel they knew the limits and we pushed those limits a bit as we did the lift to carry the module with the standing up vertical flare on it was the first big module of the campaign and that was the one that gave most people the biggest concern everybody was not scared but concerned because they wanted to make sure that the checks were done we did a lot of analysis to understand the motion and movement of the module and the vessel to make sure that the flare itself wouldn't strike the crane and we concluded that the risk of trying to remove it outweighed leaving it on the module [Music] the sea was a car so the model was no moving and any and this was a sort of a verification of all the different analysis and studies that an engineering studies that we've done for two years so after the first few hours the people were feeling a bit relief [Music] the FLIR tower was taller than the cranes makes for an unusual picture when you see the module in this big flare towers sticking up it was all done very safely we had no incidents accidents and that's what we need that's where our aim is we transit it to the disposal yard we went back and we got another bunch of modules put them on the deck of the vessel and we then carried the next module so you basically lift and carry all that you could make a trip come back and repeat it and we did that four times for the topsides then the jacket we did in one trip the most complex lift and carry actually was the jacket itself because you don't really know how much weight you're gonna pick up and we were punching the limit with the lift that we were taking on we were position india 7000 on one side of the jacket and the offshore construction vessel was positioning on the opposite side at that time we still had two legs of the jacket still entire and we had to cut the two last leg whilst the 7000 was already connected we had to ensure that the cutting operation performed with the Shore construction vessel who was short enough because we could not stay with the 7000 with the two big cranes in the truth and and the 700 tons of rigging connected to the jacket too much [Music] everybody's nervous about the fact that once you've actually cut the jacket and you've got it on the on the crane you're at a point of no return yeah we were very pleased to hear that it lifted and it was actually slightly underweight during the sailing after the actions affected earlier they lift off all the people were actually feeling relaxed because they're so that's they noticed that everything was actually happening as per plan two years ago when we started this project there was you know a big platform offshore like any other platform it's surrounded by other platforms out in my area and and then you go back today and there's just loosen and I think there's something very satisfying actually to that we've taken everything away these are difficult jobs to do dismantling old equipment and there was a tremendous effort put into how do we keep people safe a great team and that's across not only the internal team of Petrofac button with BP in Saipan as well the people were actually feeling safe the people were fitting that they had a chance to report they had a chance to speak up I think it's a sort of an exemplar and a good benchmark for other projects to learn from and I move forward in the future you know so I think it's a it's been pretty landmark for me was my first decommissioning project I think we'll want to set a good record and transfer that through into to future jobs lots of people working really well and doing some really innovative and creative things to deliver a very very successful project the experience of all the team members was probably the most important thing that we had in this project difficult project done innovatively done collaboratively safely fantastic job I think the relationship we had with BP Petrofac and ourselves was something that I think we can all look back on with warranty we've been able to employ technology some firsts in the industry and I genuinely believe that what we've done on Miller has changed the expectations relative to decommissioning and the approach to get it done in an efficient manner [Music] you [Music]

Channel: bp

Views: 12,609

Keywords: BP, North Sea, Miller

Id: b15z2UOKn0M

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018