SBM Offshore Honoured with Prestigious Spotlight at OTC
SBM Offshore has been honoured with the prestigious Spotlight on new Technology award at the 2013 OTC conference in Houston.
A pioneering, global market leader in floating production and mooring systems, SBM Offshore continually pushes the limits of technology to deliver more productive, cost-effective and safer solutions for the oil and gas industry.
The Tension Leg Platform (TLP) and Semi-Submersible products in SBM Offshore’s portfolio allow the company to offer a full field solution of a dry tree unit and an FPSO where dry trees are the client’s preferred development option. The company offers the FourStar XC Tension Leg Wellhead Platform (TLWP), whose drilling program capability has been significantly enhanced by the groundbreaking Drilling Riser Trip Saver™ (DRTS) technology – offering benefits, which are new to the industry.
Using a rail-mounted transport system, which relocates a suspended drilling riser with a drilling riser tensioner system and surface blowout preventer (BOP) in-place, the Drilling Riser Trip Saver™ is an innovative apparatus and method for drilling multiple subsea wells consecutively, while saving drilling cycle time, money and reducing safety risk by avoiding removal of the suspended drilling riser from the well bay during simultaneous drilling and production operations, while live wells are in production.
The patented technology represents a substantial time savings during the drilling campaign as well as a cost savings by considerably reducing the wear and tear to the drilling riser. The major advantage for a floating, offshore drilling and/or production platform equipped with the DRTS is the ability to be positioned at a plurality of selected positions over the well bay of the vessel. Avoiding the need to recover and redeploy the drilling riser through each individual well slot results in an inherently safer process due to the reduced safety risk by minimising dropped object hazard concerns.
The patented DRTS won this much-coveted industry award thanks to its significant benefits beyond existing technologies and its proven application; The Drilling Riser Trip Saver™ technology has a patent pending.
Randy Jordan, Vice President Floating Production Systems, who was responsible for developing the conceptual design, accepted the Spotlight on Technology Award on behalf of SBM Offshore.
Michael Wyllie, Chief Technology Officer of SBM Offshore commented “We are honoured to accept this Spotlight on New Technology Award. This prestigious accolade endorses our position as a technology leader in the offshore industry as we continue to develop leading edge innovations.”
SBM Offshore presents its new technologies, including the capacities of its bespoke FPSO vessels, mooring systems, production operations as well as terminals and services. An animation of the Drilling Riser Trip Saver™ can be viewed on the SBM Offshore booth 4141 in the Reliant Center at OTC.