Subsea Installation of an Interventionless Annular Safety Valve Reduces Operational Time A Case Study

Abstract

With the downturn in oil price and recent reduction in drilling activity, especially in high-cost environments, the industry is increasingly looking to save time, cost, and risk throughout all drilling and well operations. Conventional completion operations are being challenged to identify possible ways of reducing time and cost. To address this, the industry is adopting new technologies and methodologies to reduce risk, rig time, and nonproductive time (NPT) and to conduct operations in way that traditional tools do not allow. This paper focuses on the first subsea deployment of a remotely activated annular safety valve (ASV) in a deepwater well located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.

ASVs are traditionally set by one of four methods: a dedicated setting line to surface, applied tubing pressure, applied annulus pressure, or the shifting of a mechanical sleeve, which allows communication to a setting chamber. This paper describes an approach for running the ASV that requires no dedicated setting line and is initially insensitive to tubing pressure; this facilitates the full testing of the completion prior to setting the ASV packer. Using existing rig infrastructure, a frequency modulated pressure cycle is sent from surface to command a sleeve to move and allow communication with the setting chamber. The ASV packer is then set and tested.

The first subsea deepwater installation of the ASV was completed in August 2016, and this method of deploying the ASV provided several advantages over traditional methods.