Patent Application
20080302536
Not Applicable.
The present invention relates generally to the configuration and deployment of pressure control equipment used in drilling subsea wells. More particularly, the present invention relates to subsea blowout preventer stack systems.
As drilling rigs venture into ever increasing water depths and encounter new challenges, well control has become increasingly problematic. As costs of floating mobile offshore drilling units escalate, traditional time-intensive operations are constantly being re-evaluated in an effort to reduce overall non-drilling time, thereby increasing the drilling efficiency of the rig.
One of the most time-intensive operations is running the riser, which provides a plurality of parallel fluid conduits between the drilling rig at the surface and the blowout preventer (BOP) stack coupled to the wellhead at the seafloor. In order to facilitate handling of the riser on the rig, the riser is usually constructed by connecting a number of joints that are generally less than fifty feet in length. The riser is “run” by connecting a joint of riser to the BOP stack, lowering the riser-connected BOP stack a short distance, and then connecting another joint of riser to the uppermost end of the riser string. This process continues until the BOP stack is lowered to the wellhead at the seafloor.
In water depths in excess of 5,000 ft., running the riser generally takes several days to complete. Thus, minimizing the number of times the riser must be run is critical to minimizing the time needed to drill and complete a well. Since the BOP stack is installed at the very bottom of the riser, attempts to increase the amount of time that the BOP stack can stay on the wellhead are being explored. One factor limiting the time a BOP stack can stay on the wellhead is for maintenance of the ram BOP packer seals. Ram BOP packer seals have a limited useful life and once that limit is reached the ram BOP cannot be used until the seals have been replaced.
One common way to improve the time a BOP stack can stay on the wellhead is to increase the number of useable ram BOP cavities in the BOP stack to the point of having a “primary” and “secondary” ram BOP cavity for each size installed. In this way, the time that a BOP stack can remain operational on the wellhead would be effectively doubled. However, simply increasing the number of ram BOP cavities in a subsea BOP stack presents its own set of new challenges, such as increasing the size and weight of the BOP stack.
Drilling in deep water has often utilized subsea BOP stacks having four to six ram BOP cavities. Increasing the number of ram BOP cavities, such as to eight or ten cavities would increase the weight of the BOP stack, in some cases to a million pounds or more. Many existing rigs do not have the capacity to handle and operate such a BOP stack. In order to safely operate such a system, enhancements would be required to not only the BOP stack handling equipment on the rig, but also to the drill floor equipment, the drawworks and other hoisting equipment, the rotary table, the derrick, and the riser. Enhancing all of this equipment would likely require expanding the basic rig design to allow it to carry the additional weight of all the enhanced equipment systems and provide room for handling and storing the BOP stack.
Thus, there remains a need to develop methods and apparatus for allowing improved redundancy and operational times of subsea BOP stacks in order to overcome some of the foregoing difficulties while providing more advantageous overall results.
The embodiments of the present invention are directed toward methods for deploying a subsea blowout preventer stack system comprising a lower marine riser package, a blowout preventer stack with a first ram blowout preventer, and an additional blowout preventer package releasably coupled to the blowout preventer stack and comprising a second ram blowout preventer. The subsea blowout preventer stack assembly can be deployed by coupling a drilling riser to the lower marine riser package that is releasably connected to the blowout preventer stack. The lower marine riser package and blowout preventer stack are then lowered toward a subsea wellhead and landed on the additional blowout preventer package that is already in place on the subsea wellhead. In certain embodiments, neither a drilling rig nor the drilling riser is used to deploy and land the first additional blowout preventer package on the subsea wellhead. During drilling operations, the ram blowout preventers in the first additional blowout preventer package can be used as the primary blowout preventers, leaving the ram blowout preventers in the blowout preventer stack unused.
In one deployment method, a first additional blowout preventer package is deployed on a first wellhead and a second additional blowout preventer package is deployed on a second subsea wellhead. The BOP stack is landed on the first additional blowout preventer package and drilling operations performed through the first wellhead using the ram blowout preventers of the first additional blowout preventer package as the primary blowout preventers. Once drilling is complete at the first wellhead, the blowout preventer stack is disconnected from the first additional blowout preventer package landed on the second additional blowout preventer package. In this method, the blowout preventer stack can stay subsea while drilling several wells using more than one additional blowout preventer package.
In some deployment methods, a second additional blowout preventer package is deployed to a subsea parking pile. Once the useful life of the first additional blowout preventer package has been reached the blowout preventer stack is disconnected from the first additional blowout preventer package and landed on the second additional blowout preventer package. The first additional blowout preventer package is then disconnected from the subsea wellhead and retrieved to the surface while the blowout preventer stack and the second additional blowout preventer package are landed on the subsea wellhead. Thus, the blowout preventer stack can remain subsea with minimal disruption to the drilling program while the additional blowout preventer packages are retrieved and maintained.
Thus, the present invention comprises a combination of features and advantages that enable it to overcome various problems of prior devices. The various characteristics described above, as well as other features, will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention, and by referring to the accompanying drawings.
For a more detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Referring now to
LMRP 12 and BOP stack 14 are coupled together by wellbore connector 23 that is engaged with a corresponding mandrel on the upper end of stack 14. As is shown in
Control pods 24 of LMRP 12 provide control signals to BOP stack 14 while auxiliary control pods 34 on BOP stack 14 provide control signals to ABP 16. In certain embodiments, ram BOP's 28 in ABP 16 are controlled by auxiliary control pods 34, which may be communicatively linked to control pods 24 via umbilical jumpers or some other releasable connection. In certain embodiments, the control functions for ram BOP's 28 of ABP 16 (as well as control functions for other equipment) may be integrated into control pods 24 on LMRP 12, thus eliminating the need for auxiliary control pods 34. Because ABP 16 is operated with BOP stack 14, hydraulic accumulator bottles 42 mounted on the BOP stack can be used to support operation of the ABP. ABP 16 may also comprise a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) panel 44 that provides control of the ABP functions by an ROV 46.
LMRP 12 and BOP stack 14 are similar to, and can operate as, a convention two-component stack assembly. ABP 16 is installed between wellhead 18 and BOP stack 14 and provides additional ram BOP's 28 to provide redundancy and increase effective service life. In certain embodiments, ABP 16 will not be lowered from the rig to the wellhead on a conventional riser with the rest of the BOP stack but will be deployed separately. This separate deployment can be accomplished on drill pipe, heavy wireline, or any other means, either from the drilling rig if it has a dual activity derrick, from another rig (perhaps of lesser drilling capabilities), or from a heavy duty workboat or tender vessel. In addition to being run, the ABP 16 could be stored and serviced by a vessel other than the drilling rig, thus eliminating the need for additional storage space and handling capacity on the drilling rig.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
Under any of the uses of an ABP as described above, the ram BOP cavities in the ABP can be considered the primary cavities while the ram BOP cavities in the BOP stack would then be considered the secondary cavities. This would allow the BOP stack and LMRP to stay down almost indefinitely because the secondary cavities in the BOP stack would only be utilized after the primary cavities in the ABP were rendered inoperable. And the primary BOP cavities in the ABP could be retrieved to the surface and maintained while the BOP stack and LMRP were drilling atop another ABP.
While preferred embodiments of this invention have been shown and described, modifications thereof can be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope or teaching of this invention. The embodiments described herein are exemplary only and are not limiting. Many variations and modifications of the system and apparatus are possible and are within the scope of the invention. For example, the relative dimensions of various parts, the materials from which the various parts are made, and other parameters can be varied, so long as the override apparatus retain the advantages discussed herein. Accordingly, the scope of protection is not limited to the embodiments described herein, but is only limited by the claims that follow, the scope of which shall include all equivalents of the subject matter of the claims.
This application claims benefit of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/933,934 filed Jun. 8, 2007, and entitled “Multi-Deployable Subsea Stack System,” which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60933934 | Jun 2007 | US |
