Maersk Angola uses TenarisHydril Dopeless technology for deepwater appraisal well and sidetrack

Maersk Angola uses TenarisHydril Dopeless technology for deepwater appraisal well and sidetrack

LUANDA -- With three offshore blocks, Maersk Oil Angola is one of the most active operators in West Africa. They began working in the country in 2005 and, by 2010, they had standardized the use of TenarisHydril Dopeless technology in all their offshore projects.

In the Chissonga Field in the Lower Congo basin, which is located 90 mi offshore Angola at 4,900-ft water depth, Maersk drilled the Chissonga 4 deepwater appraisal well in 2012. For this well, Maersk used TenarisHydril Blue Dopeless connections with local field service support.

Tenaris offered Blue connections for the critical 9-5/8-in. production casing. Dopeless dry, multifunctional coating that makes thread compounds obsolete, is applied in a fully automated
process, on dedicated production lines at Tenaris mills. The process guarantees that the exact amount of lubricant is applied to each connection, whereas in standard E&P operations, thread
compounds are applied manually in the field with a brush. As a result, make-up operations become more consistent, more uniform and more reliable heightening the connection’s performance even after several make-and-breaks. Furthermore, since several operational rig-side steps over the connections are eliminated, the use of Dopeless® technology reduces both pipe handling operations and manpower, which results in enhanced personnel safety.

For the running of the Chissonga 4 well, Tenaris field services specialists provided on-site assistance and advice regarding the best practices and procedures to achieve optimal connection
performance, making sure the products were installed safely and efficiently. The running of the 9-5/8-in. string in the Chissonga 4 well went smoothly, with zero rejects and zero incidents. During the running of 214 joints of Blue Dopeless connections, a local field service specialist assisted the whole operation, from connection inspection to make-up graphs monitoring.

One month after the job was finished, Maersk attempted a sidetrack of the well. 126 joints were pulled out of the hole, out of which 2 were rejected. A field service specialist also
assisted this operations, monitoring the whole procedure and inspecting on-site the pulled joints. Not only did the pulling of these 126 Blue Dopeless connections go flawlessly, but also 119 of these joints were used for the sidetrack a few days later with only one rejected joint.