Onsite Machining Services for Decommissioning Projects

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Global Decommissioning Support Services
"The equipment and specialist technicians needed to carry out deconstruction machining on complex decommissioning projects."

With thousands of platforms and structures scheduled for removal globally, along with many approaching end of production, there’s a demand for decommissioning and deconstruction specialist service companies operating in the energy sector.

However, decommissioning projects are time consuming and complex undertakings that require input from a variety of specialist contractors.

Oil and Gas decommissioning companies are often well-equipped to handle the complexity of the work involved in plug and abandonment (P&A) or decommissioning of a platform with the assistance required by onsite machining experts to support projects or ringfenced scopes.

That’s where Glacier Energy’s ability is best placed.

We are well-versed at operating in demanding environments and familiar with the Well construction and infrastructure of majority of the offshore production platforms.

Drawing on over 70 years of institutional experience, we provide the engineering solutions, equipment and specialist technicians needed to carry out deconstruction machining projects to assist with full decommissioning package.

We have a proven ability to deploy globally within 24-48 hours and work side-by-side with our clients to ensure we provide the capable of overcoming the complex engineering challenges of our clients, before costly delays to decommissioning projects. 

Decommissioning Support For an Oil and Gas Platform P&A Project

Our engineering and on-site machining teams are playing a crucial part of the 5-year plug and abandonment programme on an Oil and Gas offshore platform - assisting to date in 21 of 41 well abandonments. Learn about the solutions that we have produced here.

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Specialist Decommissioning Services For The Energy Industry

Working with asset owners and tier-two contractors, we provide on-site machining services and hands-on technical support for cutting, milling and methods designed to remove equipment and infrastructure to assist on decommissioning programmes.

For routine work, we maintain a large inventory of "off the shelf" equipment that we can ship to your site in a matter of hours. We also maintain a pool of in-house technicians and machinists to help minimise downtime.

For bespoke engineering work - like the design of custom machines, reverse-engineered components or a one-off parts -  our in-house design and manufacturing expertise can take products from concept to completion allowing us to engineer cost-effective solutions that allow you to decommission assets efficiently.

decommissioning head

As an example, we recently designed a machine for the sole purpose of removing a well starter head fixed in place with internal oxy-acetylene welds. 

The removal of this well starter head would take place in a (zone 1) hazardous environment and needed to preserve as much of the conductor pipe as allowable - so as to assist with the removal of subsea casing strings at a later date.  

To reassure the client of our capabilities and demonstrate that we could design a tool capable of safely cutting the well starter head free from inside, we fabricated a mock-up of the full starter head assembly to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed solution.

Once the client had signed off on our solution, we deployed our equipment and successfully removed the well stater head in a matter of days – enabling the main decommissioning partner to progress their operation and move on to the next well. 

Our Decommissioning Support Capabilities

Innovators with an established track record for solving complex engineering challenges, we’re always pushing ourselves to develop new capabilities and will happily take on decommissioning support work not included in this list. However, most of the work we currently undertake involves some element of the following:

  • Internal / External Casing Cutting – Internal capacity 20” / External capacity 48”
  • Pull Hole Trepanning / Drilling – Single or double set-up with 6.5” hole capacity
  • Well head Severance
  • Tie Down Bolt Removal
  • Wellhead Flange Splitting Due to Seized Bolts
  • Seized Stud Removal
  • Zone 1 Certified Hydraulic Power Units
  • Decommissioning Bespoke Engineering Solutions
  • Drilling / Boring / Tapping of Threads
  • Stud Drilling to allow removal of seized valves or associated
  • ancillaries – Various Drilling Methods
  • Standard casing cutting
  • Internal casing cutting
  • Trepanning of conductor retrieval holes to allow lifting
  • Milling to allow destruct of support structures or other obstacles
  • Heavy cutting using Clyde Machines to remove certain Wellhead configurations
 

A Decommissioning Support Partner You Can Rely On

When making the case for our decommissioning support services, we always start by drawing attention to the calibre of our engineering support, equipment and machinists. Having a proven track record of working on several complex projects challenging locations like Nigeria, Algeria and the North Sea, our teams are well prepared for the challenges posed by ageing assets and come prepared for the difficult conditions they’ll encounter in many work scopes.

It’s also worth noting that we draw on over 70 years of institutional knowledge. It’s this in depth knowledge and understanding with energy infrastructure projects - coupled with technology we’ve acquired with years of experience, this allows us to design and build bespoke equipment which addresses highly complex engineering challenges.

It’s also this knowledge that allows us to design tools that are safe for use in hazardous, zone 1 and 2 environments – or deploy technology that’s safe for use in live production environments, this allows us to carry out work without incurring unnecessary downtime.

img decommissioning 1

Our ability to adapt is what we pride ourselves in - when we first started providing solutions for decommissioning scopes, we were working on platforms online: utilising derricks to deploy equipment and creating sim-ops with other work on the platform.

Through experience we quickly found ways to adapt both our tools and our processes to ensure that all decommissioning support services could be supplied offline – freeing up platform infrastructure for other contractors and minimising our impact on the wider decommissioning project.

To us, upholding our reputation and providing a truly ‘turnkey’ service that meets your needs and supports your objectives is the most important part of any project and we know it’s this unwavering commitment to excellent service that sets us apart.

Ready to talk about your decommissioning project?

Irrespective of whether you need a support partner to cut pipe casings or design a fully bespoke tool capable for removing a specific piece of equipment, our decommissioning support team are always happy to discuss. Please get in touch using the form below, one of our technical experts will be in touch to learn more about your project, discuss our capabilities and work out whether we can provide you the solution to the challenge you have encountered.

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