Paula Dittrick
OGJ Senior Staff Writer
HOUSTON, Oct. 15 -- ExxonMobil Corp., on behalf of Marine Well Containment Co. (MWCC), awarded a front-end engineering design contract to Technip for containment equipment to be used on wells in as much as 10,000 ft of water.
The system will have initial capacity to contain deepwater oil well spills of 100,000 b/d, said MWCC, a nonprofit joint venture formed to provide emergency equipment and response services for future oil spills in the US Gulf of Mexico (OGJ Online, July 21, 2010).
The subsea containment equipment is being designed to create a direct connection and seal on a subsea well to prevent oil from escaping into the ocean.
MWCC was organized after an Apr. 20 blowout of the Macondo oil and gas well on Mississippi Canyon Block 252. The blowout caused a fire and explosion on Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible, killing 11 workers and resulting in a massive oil spill. BP PLC operated Macondo.
ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC pooled $1 billion to form MWCC. BP later joined MWCC and agreed to make its underwater well containment equipment available to all oil and gas companies operating in the gulf (OGJ Online, Sept. 20, 2010).
The MWCC-Technip contract covers system engineering and design of specific subsea components, including the containment assembly, manifold, control umbilicals, accumulator, dispersant injection, risers, and flowlines.
ExxonMobil is leading the engineering, procurement, and construction of the marine well containment system.
A project organization of 100 workers from member companies within the joint venture is working full-time on the design of the new system.
The system will be equipped with a suite of adapters and connectors to interact with various interface points, including any well design and equipment used by oil and gas operators in the gulf. It will be flexible, adaptable and available for mobilization within 24 hr of being notified of an incident.
Contact Paula Dittrick at [email protected].
