Barge Mounted Coil Tubing - An Operational Safety Case Study in South China Sea

Abstract

Abstract Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd (PCSB) is one of major oil and gas companies in South East Asia. It has had years of experience operating coil tubing unit (CTU) on relatively large oil and gas field platforms. Vast of field experience and project lessons learned have been captured, refined and eventually embedded in the company's CTU standard operating procedures. These have lead to zero lost-time incidents (LTIs) cases in 5 years of CTU operations particularly offshore Terengganu in South China Sea. The CTU operations are often complex and involve heavy lifting, weighty machineries, minimal deck space and long working hours. Hence, to achieve such a record through out the 12 months in a year with 2 units running concurrently is definitely something to be noted. In February 2009, PCSB embarked on it first barge mounted CTU operation at offshore Terengganu. The option was choosen to access marginal field with small platform deck space and limited crane capacities. These include the process of lifting heavy equipment from workbarge with 60 degree angle to a 50 ft high platform during high swell, having to mobilize crews back and fourth from workbarge to platform and rigging up in dynamic condition. Furthermore, it was the first time the work barge crews experienced such operation and communication constraints due to remote and weather conditions further complicated the situation. Knowing that field experience is almost zero for mounted barge CTU operations in PCSB fields, resources and time has been put to ensure that the HSE track record is intact. Starting with Project Risk Assessment (PRA) which involved all contractors and field operator personnel, the team then analyzed of the whole campaign chain. This paper will review PCSB project success experiences and lesson learns on how to do CT operation from Barge within small platform during moonson season with high level of safety.