Subsea Engineering
What the team says...
The Subsea Engineering team is responsible for subsea engineering support activities throughout the whole lifecycle of Fairfield’s field developments.
In support of business development activity, engineering support is provided during the process of asset acquisition, concept development and screening as potential developments are subsequently commercialised. The team provides project management resources for Front End Engineering and Design, bidding of construction projects and project delivery, and installation post sanction of field developments. The composition of the team is such that personnel involved in field development planning also get involved in operations post first oil. In this way, lessons learnt from day-to-day activities are applied in the design of new facilities.
The Subsea Engineering team is also responsible for the subsea interfaces on the wells (subsea trees and controls) to the pipeline systems and risers onto Dunlin, and the export system to Cormorant Alpha. This results in involvement with well construction activities, including the supply of intervention tooling and trees, production engineering with corrosion control and flow assurance, to integrity management activities such IRM interventions, ROV inspection operations and routine pigging operations on the pipelines. Integrity management has been a major component of the work carried out on the Dunlin asset since its transfer to Fairfield. This has involved several major intervention programmes to rectify faults and gather data for life extension. Given that Dunlin is a node in the Brent pipeline system, the integrity management activities involve not only Amec, the Dunlin duty holder, but also the other platform operators on the system. This adds considerably to the diverse range of activities undertaken by the team.
Stephen Sapp, Subsea Engineering Manager comments, “The engineering and operations tasks undertaken by the team vary enormously from planning and management of diving operations to equipment design and supply management. All these activities require proactive behaviours to ensure that the stakeholders, from Fairfield teams (drilling, production engineering) to external parties such as the Dunlin Duty holder, have their needs met. This has resulted in the provision of subsea hardware input into integrity management systems and operational troubleshooting in recent times. With the addition of the recently acquired assets which are awaiting development, there is an opportunity to expand the lifecycle approach to project delivery, ensuring that Fairfield’s subsea infrastructure is fit for purpose and that we have the means to provide consistent project delivery performance.”
Drilling
Covering all aspects of Drilling, Completion and Well Services activities, the team strives for continuous improvement in well delivery.
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Finance
Ensures funds are available to execute corporate strategy whilst providing key statistical data to aid decision making.
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Subsurface
The primary function of the Subsurface Team is to ensure that maximum value from the reservoirs is achieved.
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