RAPID FLUID POWER SOLUTIONS

 

Extraordinary history of Azerbaijani oil took a new meaning with signing of the Contract of Century in 1994. From now on oil and gas industry moved fast towards the most advanced technologies known to the modern world. Many foreign and national companies made this possible by bringing know how technologies and training specialists in the process.

Rapid Solutions Ltd. was one of the first service firm arrived in Baku. The British company founded in 1996, it initially offered Power Engineering services to Oil and Gas companies.  Recognizing the needs of the industry in fast and effective solutions in the different spheres Rapid Solutions Ltd. in the following years successfully integrated Power Engineering with other services, such as Telecommunications, Information Technologies, Control and Instrumentation, Fluid Power and Motors Repair into the business portfolio that company offers to the market today.

While all divisions are success stories thanks to the highly experienced people working in the company, this article is actually about one that installs the systems to move platforms and do other aqua magic tricks.

The beginning of its story started in June 2002 with the team of skillful hydraulics engineers. The following 5 years the division provided wide spectrum of Hydraulic services to the Marine, Offshore and Petrochemical Industry, which included:

Today among the major customers in Marine are BUE Caspian, Western Geophysical, Tide Water, Swift Engineering, Thales, in Offshore and Construction industry - BOS Shelf, MCCI, Bentec Drilling, KCA Deutag, GS Hydro, AMEC, AIOC, Maersk, Maritime Hydraulics, Schlumberger and in Petrochemical -  BTC and SCP pipeline. The Division has offices and working teams on two Construction Sites of Baku Deep Water Jacket Factory - Star Gulf and MCCI.

Rapid Solutions Ltd Fluid Power Division has provided hydraulic services to all phases of the ACG Field development at the Bos Shelf and MCCI yards.  In addition to these notable successes Fluid Power Division has undertaken several major hydraulic projects : on semi submersible drilling rigs Dada Gorgud and Istiglal in Azerbaijan,  Chirag platform, BTC/SCP pipe line (Ball Valve Station/Pumping station hydraulic installations and commissioning support). For Technip Rapid Solutions hydraulic engineers installed TPG 500 well controls system and break out box and carried pre commissioning. They performed SSVI testing and pre commissioning, HIPPS valve pre commissioning, pig launcher hydraulic unit pre commissioning, CA/WA/EA well controls system hydraulic installations and pre commissioning. Other major hydraulic projects included DUQ and PCWU jacket upend control system/gripper activation system installation, pre commissioning and commissioning vendor support for Star Gulf and complete drilling package hydraulics piping installation, pre commissioning and commissioning for GS-Hydro for ACG project.

JACKET upend control system/gripper activation system.

ACG(Azeri/Chirag/Gunashli) Project consisted of 6 jackets in 3 phases:

All of these jackets were installed using upend control system which provided stability to bring the jacket to verticality and provided complete and excellent control during the  final settle down of jacket on the sea bed. Pre installed pin piles in some cases were used. Installation of jackets in the deep seas requires complicated technology, where hydraulics system is used to control the ballasting of compartment by using flooding and venting system that provides required buoyancy of jacket. All the legs of jackets were air tight and made like a compartment; during the launch a positive pressure is maintained in these compartments and also in the two flotation tanks which has a same buoyancy system (one on each side). Required buoyancy is calculated to overcome jacket weight. This makes the jacket buoyant once it is launched. Once the jacket is launched in the water and comes to near verticality, hydraulic engineers use upend control center (UCC) which consists of complete set of direction control valves, for actuating flood and vent valves, display panels to define the compartment pressure and monitor flood and vent valve position and pre charged accumulators to operate critical valves to get the stability to the jacket immediately after the floating. Ballast engineers/hydraulic engineers work in coordination with installation team, so ballasting and upending of jacket is done in a controlled manner. Simultaneously required flooding and ballasting of flotation tanks are done by using of the support vessels. Normally initial upending is done about a mile away from actual installation area to avoid any damage to drill template and pre-drilled wells. Once the bottom of jacket is approximately 12 meter above the sea bed, jacket is towed to the actual installation area (where  template is installed) and final upending and settle down of the jacket is done in a controlled manner by using upend control system.

The second hydraulic system used for jackets is Pile Gripper System.

Pile gripper provides means for temporarily securing a jacket to its driven piles while permanent connection is made. Pile grippers are mounted at the top of jacket pile sleeve during the fabrication. After the foundation piles are driven, grippers are actuated to grip the pile, securing the structure while the leveling operation continues and selected structure can be secured and permanent connections are made. This improves grouting results, when grouting grippers prevent any movement of the jacket while the grout cures. Grippers are also used in case of storm to secure the jacket if derrick barge is forced to go off the location.

Two types of grippers were used in ACG project: Phase 1&2 - Skirt Pile Gripper and phase 3 - Pin Pile Grippers, serving almost the same purpose.

Gripper activation is done by means of hydraulic power operated from the top of the jacket or using a support vessel mostly using manual activation control. In case of any failure of this, a back up ROV interface system is also included in the system.

 

ACG project drilling package hydraulics with GS-Hydro

For over four years Rapid Solutions Ltd has the partnership with GS Hydro Norway, subcontractor of BP for the drilling hydraulics piping package for ACG Platforms. This project involves all hydraulic piping, pre-commissioning, commissioning and also support to the integrated drilling team for four platforms - West Azeri, East Azeri, Central Azeri, Deep Water Gunashli. 

A modern drilling rig consists of equipment that uses advanced hydraulic equipments and control systems which require highly clean and leak free reliable hydraulic piping system. These are provided by GS Hydro with its specialized piping systems. GS-Hydro's innovative flange-based pipe connecting systems allow piping systems with high and low working pressures to be assembled without welding - fast and easy with the highest possible quality and reliability, completely leak-free, with high levels of joint integrity and in the most cost efficient manner. This is called piping without welding and it is successfully applied by Rapid Solutions Fluid Power Division team for the whole drilling package. All Rapid Solutions hydraulic engineers and technicians are well trained in fabrication and installation of GS Hydro flange piping system. Rapid Solutions engineers also carry out the procurement, hot oil flushing and installation of hydraulic and utility hoses for the complete drilling package. The hoses and fittings are supplied by Hydrasun Rapid Solutions Ltd, a joint venture partner of Rapid Solutions Ltd. in Azerbaijan.

Apart from the main scope of work which included installation of pipe work, pressure testing and commissioning of pipe-work, Rapid Solutions Ltd. Fluid Power Division works as a hydraulic supporter for various vendors, like Varco for BOP Systems, Maritime Hydraulics for the complete drilling package, Dynamic Equipment Company (DEC) for rigs skidding system, supporting their installation and all operations on platform. 

In spite of the fact that Rapid Solutions Fluid Power Division have contract only for hydraulic piping system, Rapid Solutions project team participates in each and every job in the drilling construction and commissioning of BP integrated drilling team. The exemplary performance of Rapid Solutions project team resulted in the extension of contract by AIOC/BP till the end of ACG project.

Currently Rapid Solutions technical expertise and equipments are being used by KCA Deutag, AMEC Oil & Gas and other offshore service companies for shutdown jobs and also for all upgrade field projects on drilling and production platforms operated by BP in Azerbaijan.

The success of Rapid Solution Fluid Power Division solely depends on its national and foreign staff with core specialist knowledge in marine, oil & gas and industrial sectors allowing it to deliver high quality solutions across a broad spectrum of the market. The success has been built on our principles of understanding of our customer needs, providing sound fit for purpose technical solutions and delivering a package that provides customer with best value.