SPE 126827

Barge Mounted Coil Tubing - An Operational Safety Case Study in South China
Sea
M Hairi A Razak, SPE, PETRONAS; Afendy Yusoff, SPE; Rahmat Wibisono, SPE, Schlumberger

Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Conference on Health, Safety and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1214 April 2010.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been reviewed
by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or
members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is
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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 companys 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.

Introduction

PCSB Peninsular Malaysia Operation (PMO) owns and operates 13 oil and gas fields in South China Sea, located at offshore
Terengganu. The number of platform that had been erected was around thirty comprised of huge eight legged platform to the
smallest of a monopods and been develop in water depths ranging of 65 to 75 meter. In a bigger mother platform cranes capacity
of 25 MT is common while remote operating platform the design capacity only cater between 12 to 18 MT. Compliment with its
big capacity crane, the deck space on mother platform will have relatively huge area. The choice of platform size, and crane
capacities largely depend on the location and field development plan philosophy.

Small fields platforms philosophy were developed since 90s to access the marginal, small compartment reservoir that will not be
economic using conventional platform technique. These consist of small monopod, and tripod platform. For this type of platform,
the crane will be ranging from 3-5 MT with obvious smaller deck space.
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These small fields platforms right now has been considered as brownfield because it has produced since 90s. Just like many others
brownfield, well intervention activities was intensive especially for pressure survey, production logging and well integrity
investigation and rectifications. Well intervention operations commence every day in a year and slow down during monsoon
season (November to February). Routine and simple well interventios will be carried out by slickline unit as it is relatively cheap
and easy easier to manage and operates. Slicklines has small foot print and do not command huge weight. In any platform,
slickline equipment lifting and operations was not an issue. However, thouroughout many years of depleting mature reservoirs,
PCSB facing production challenges like high sand production, high water cut, scale problems and skins due to production. Those
problems in small field platform are beyond slickline capabilities. The remedial well intervention activities will require sand clean
out, scale removal, cementing and acid stimulation operations that can only be carried out with Coiled Tubing Units (CTU).

Overview of PCSB PMO Coiled Tubing Operations

Prior 2009, all of the Coiled Tubing (CT) interventions are concentrated in platform that has minimum 18 MT of crane and large
deck space area in which PCSB specify should be minimum of 350 m2. Routine CT campaigns in PCSB fields usually are sand
clean out with nitrogen lifting, scale removal using acid, water or zonal isolation with cement. Activities that been categorized as
non routine are as follow:

1. Zonal Isolation with mechanical conventional or inflatable bridge plug. The objectives primarily are for water/gas
shut of applicationss. It is involves pump through the bridge plug that run in the hole, and set to certain target depth for
totally isolate unwanted zone.
2. Plug and abandonment operations. This type of operation use cement or mechanical bridge plug compliment with
cement dumping on top of it. Isolating zones to eliminate cross flow and well abandonment for infill drilling preparation
are the primary objective for this type of operation.
3. Through Tubing Scale removal by mechanical milling. This application will be considered when acid or specific type
of chemical is not enough to remove hard scale (Barium based scale) inside the casing. Under reamer mill was used in
this application due to expandable ability upon exiting end of tubing.
4. Perforation or reperforations. Predominantly for wells that has high deviation (more than 60), has history/predicted
high pulling weight and posses severe dog leg severity. Recent operation for this application has shift toward realtime
depth correlation as oppose to conventional memory depth correlation.
5. Fishing operations. Usually last option after slickline or braided line fishing operations result in failure or not feasible
due to complexity of the well. CT operation will be used to retrieve the fish and eventually avoid more expensive
workover operations
6. Acid Stimulations. Required extensive study on reservoir candidate selection. Well integrity and zone injectivity issue
must be address first before any green light on acid stimulation operatios.
7. Pressure and temperature or reservoir logging survey. Well candidates are highly deviated, has high pulling weight,
severe dog leg, horizontal well provile or ERD wells. Logging objectives mainly to understand production contribution
from each zone (Production Loggiong Tool). Usually realtime logging is preferable over memory logging due to data
realibility issue. Only if the survey objective to acquire temperature and pressure, then memory logging will be part of
this type of application.
8. Tubing cut operations. In PCSB fields, the operations involve alternate flow rate command system to activate cutter
chargers. Precision and depth correlation is critical because the well for this application mainly to prepare the well for
workover/infill drilling candidates. Hence it will save rig time by performing rigless tubing cutting operation.

These routine and non routine operations are done with different platform and various weather conditions. Operation challenges
faces CT intervention includes remote platforms with minimum facilities (no living quarter, lack or no basic facilities, inter-rig
during bad weather), various facility constraints, and handling hazardous contaminants in hydrocarbon (Hg, H2S & CO2).
Knowledge and field experience gather was extensive and entire refinements were embedded in CT standard operating procedures.
All those efforts eventually produce good record of HSE with no lost-time incidents (LTIs).

While big platform has been the focus for the past 5 years, small remote platform is neglected due to economic factor and platform
facilities conditions. When the price of crude hover around USD 100 per barrel at the middle of 2008, CT operations in small field
platform has pass one of its major contsrain. Potential of unlocking a few million barrel of crude reserve with capability to increase
current production rate has made the project become economically viable.The only constraint that needs to be resolve is how to
perform CT Operation with limited facilities and conditions that shall be describe in the next section.
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Coiled Tubing Operations in Small Remote Platform

Based on preliminary study, it was estimated that a third from total of offshore platform fall into small remote platform category in
which disallowing any conventional CT operations. These platforms either or have both limited crane capacity, specifically below
12 MT and small deck space for spotting CT equipments. Others common constraints in these platforms are no living quarter and
build base on burn down philopshopy, which mean staying on the platform is not an option. Personnels must either inter
rig/platform every time crew change or stay in accommodation barge anchor nearby, latter option normally applicable only for
infill drilling or workover operations.

Obviously, conventional CT units with maximum load of 18 MT (CT Reel) are not suitable for this kind of platform. Further study
and discussion indicated that utilizing coiled tubing with workbarge provide the best technical solution. Before coming to
conclusion of agreeing on barge mounted CT operations, few possible options had been discussed:

1. Modification on platform crane and structure. The option was initially considered attractive due to capital expenditure
incurred will allow conventional CT operation to be taken place. However, long period of time is required for structural
studies, contracting process, and crane fabrications and installation. Whenever crude price drop from certain threshold
value per barrels, the modification is no more viable.
2. CT operations with modular crane. It is not possible since large space will be consumed by the crane and its part will
not be able to be lift by the candidate platform crane because its maximum capacity is 3 MT with safe working load of 2.5
MT.
3. CT Operation with jack-up barge. The cost of rental is significantly massive. Initial market survey indicate no jackup
barge available on that proposed time and none are interested to participate in chartered contract

Workbarge Selection Criteria

Workbarge selection is critical issue that needs to be address. As its have to meet 3 essential criteria for the workbarge to be deem
suitable for CT barge mounted operations. First, its must have minimum 450 m2 of deck space without crawler crane or has
minimum 350 m2 of deck space after crawler crane has been installed on the barge. Even that so, the workbarge must be properly
inspected and measured before any commitment reach by both PCSB and Vessel owner. This is because positioning of the crawler
crane and its boom rest will affect on CT equipment exact spot. Wrongly position CT equipment will hinder from the crane boom
to circle around or worst hitting the CT equipment situated below its circle area. Figure 1.will illustrate constraint that been
imposed by crawler crane positioning.

Next, another essential criterion is its crane capacity. PCSB specify for the crane to must be able to lift 12 MT of weight at 60
angle of boom. To meet such condition, crawler crane that need to be use is 150 MT capacitieswith 150 ft of boom length. Base on
the crane load chart, the crane is capable to handle weigth of 15 MT at mention angle. Crane 200 MT or more is not appropriate as
it will demand bigger deck space and clearly surpassing desirable technical requirement. In essence, bigger crane take out more
room thus entail larger area and eventually lead to higher cost. Figure 2 will clearly show on how crane impose such discerning
concern. The crane capacity selected shall be adequate to lift the injector head into the platform with remaining equipment spotted
on workbarge.

Lastly, the workbarge must be able to accommodate at least 30 personnel of well services crew plus its own marine crews, but it
always depend on jobs objective and operation requirements. In this campaign the team finding is for the workbarge to able to
accommodate at least 80 personnel. The reason being is in PMO operation, total well services crew plus marine crew was about 60
personnels. The balance is left for production crew to support 24 hours CT Operation. It is PCSB requirement for any activities in
platform, Permit to Works (PTW) need to be filled in sign of by platform superintendent representative. Practically having
production crew to stay in the workbarge would avoid any unnecessary interrig to mother platform which at certain location takes
about 1 hour journey and save cost from having dedicated standby boad for production personnel.

Workbarge Safety Requirement

Since this is the first time for such operation in any of PCSB field, expertise from other PETRONAS subsidiary is sought to give
advice on the workbarge selection. In case of PETRONAS, standard guidelines called PETRONAS Guideline for Barges
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Operating Offshore Malaysia or PGBOOM already in placed and acted as the rules that need to be comply by all barges that
intend to operate in any PCSB field. In fact, there is one special Petronas body established to monitor and enforce this regulation.
This body will do the inspection on the barge, make a rectification report that need to be close by the workbarge owners and finally
endorsed the workbarge worthiness to operate in any PCSB fields. Inspection and recommendation conducted by the so called
third party will ensure the integrity of the report and its compliance.

As brief, PGBOOM dictate and describe major health and safety requirement on barge such as accommodation spaces, fire
detection and alarm systems, life saving appliances, fire fighting equipment and operating manuals. In this 2009 barge mounted
coil tubing operation as gist, we specify for the barge to comply such below:

1. Accommodation Spaces

- Each sleeping, mess, recreational, or hospital (sick bay) space that is adjacent to or immediately above a stowage, or
machinery space must be adorproof and protected from the heat and noise
- The deckheads of each accommodation space must be of light colour
- No sleeping space may berth more than four persons
- Each sleeping space must have at least 191 centimetres (approximately 6 ft. 3 inches) of headroom over clear deck
areas
- Each hospital (sick bay) space must have one berth for every 50 persons or portion thereof onboard, who are not
berthed in single occupancy rooms, but the number of berths need not exceed 2

2. Fire Detection and Alarm Systems

- Must giving a visual and audible alarm signal automatically at one or more indicating units whenever any detector
comes into operation
- Whenever activated, the indicating units must show the location where the fire is detected in any space served by the
system
- The detectors must fitted in an appropriate position and suitably protected against impact and physical damage and
withstand severe marine condition

3. Life Saving Appliances

- Liferafts must have capacity to accommodate twice the total number of persons onboard
- Lifejackets must have 1.5 times the complement of the barge. Each lifejacket need to be fitted with a whistle and a
light powered by awater activated battery. Each person shall be provided with a lifejacket stowed in his
accommodation. Additional lifejackets should be stowed at or near the normal embarkation positions, in a suitable
dry stowage position unlocked and clearly marked.
- Barge must habe A Muster List showing special duties to be undertaken by the crew in the event of an emergency
shall be allotted to each member of the crew

4. Fire Fighting Equipment

- At least two independently driven fire pumps

- If a fire in any one compartment could put all the fire pumps out of action, there must be an alternative means of
providing water for fire fighting
- The diameter of the Fire Main pipes shall be sufficient for the effective distribution of the maximum required
discharge from two fire pumps operating simultaneously
- Sufficient number of portable fire extinguishers to ensure that at least one such extinguisher will be readily available
for use in any part of the accommodation or service spaces
- At least two sets of Firemens Outfits stored so as to be easily accessible and ready for use.
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5. Operating Manuals

- An Operating Manual containing guidance for the safe operation of the unit under normal and emergency conditions,
should be on board and available to all concerned

Risk Management

Risk Assessment, Mitigation, and Solution

The Challenges begin with equipment placement both on the barge and on the platform. The equipment has to be placed in a way
that enables crane boom to reach equipments that will require frequent repositioning (mainly due to operation requirement). This
mainly CT Injector Head, Nitrogen Tanks, and critical equipments that needs to be swap with back up unit (incase equipment
breakdown). Besides crane factor, equipment placement also needs to consider stability of the vessel. Discussions on equipment
placement were held between Services Company, Vessel Owner, and PMO marine department. From the discussion, balasting
program had been developed to ensure stability of the vessel during sailing, and operation. The discussion also results in several of
the equipment unable to be place at the intended spot due to limitation on crane, and also on barge stability. To overcome this
problem, positioning/re-positioning was done manually with chain block and roller. As for chemical placement, the standard
practice is to have all the chemical baskets/pallets to be placed away from living quarters, and equipment operating console.

Part of PMO operating standard is to have slickline drift run prior to CT intervention. This step is compulsary, to ensure that
SCSSV is operating properly, and to collect information for subsequent CT intervention. However, for vessel operation it creates
more challenges due to frequent lifting needs to be performed between platform and barge. Minimizing frequent lifting has been
achieved by carefully planning slickline units placement in platform, therefore avoiding lifting from the barge back to platform
during CT operation. Only during slickline operation, storage of CT unit in the boat was unavoidable. Hence during slickline
operation, CT equipment packages needs to be placed in the barge.

Anchoring and mooring are other big risks that need to be overcome by project team. Failure to properly anchor the barge due to
obstruction in sea beads, rough weather condition, and poor visibility could lead the barge to collide with the platform. Barge
positioning relatively to platform depends largely on 3 factors:

1. Current direction. The direction of the barge should at the orientation incase of bad weather, and the barge has to be
disconnected with platform, the barge shall drift away from platform.
2. Nearby facility. Several platforms have an FPSO located nearby the platfrom. Study on FPSO anchor patterns, and
current direction relative with FPSO was done to avoid obstructing FPSO anchor pattern and potential collision of barge
and FPSO during bad weather.
3. Underwater pipeline. As part of the planning, project team require Structural drawing of pipeline. Discussion held
between Vessel service provider and PETRONAS maritime to mitigate the risk of damaging pipeline during anchorning
operation. Failure to follow correct anchor patterns could leads to damaging the pipeline and the result shall be
catastrophic.

Due to critical requirement as above, PMO appointed qualified officer to be available on board to ensure the anchoring process has
meet above requirement.

Chain of commands is very crucial in this operation. Barge captain will have responsibility for safety on his barge while CT
Supervisor will have responsibility on the platform. In this operation Man in Charge (MIC) was elected to be the overall
coordinator between Service Company, and Barge captain. The MIC will have the biggest approval authority in the operation, and
also as single offshore contact point. The expectations are to have flawless communication, one flow of information, good
interaction and coordination among Service Company. PMO representative still present during the operation to ensure Petronas
safety standards are meet, and local regulation has not been compromise.

Threshold on weather conditions were established as part of operational guidance. Therefore, if decision needed to stop the
operation, it will not depend on personnel feeling and discussion to reach such a critical decision. Example of weather threshold
are wind speed (maximum 20 knots), and swell height (maximum 3 meter height). If any of these 2 parameters observed during
operation, barge captain shall discuss those with MIC and PMO representative. The decision to stop operation due to weather
condition to ensure safe operation will be decided by the MIC and PMO representative on the barge.
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Equipment fastening is also another important parameter during engineerig of this operation. Improper equipment fastening could
cause personnel injury and potential of dropping equipments into open sea. This situation might occur during rough weather
condition, or during barge sailing. Equipment layout on barge was discussed by involving Service Company supervisor, Barge
Captain, Project Team, and MIC. It was decided that mechanical fastening is not suitable for the operation, and welding for
securing of the equipment should provide the best safeguard for equipments on the barge. After the design has been approved,
equipment fastening was performed in the barge main deck, and MPI was done to ensure no flaws/crack in the welding. As the
barge start sailing, the fastening needs to be inspect on daily basis. Besides daily insection, immediate fastening need to be done
when the barge had just encounter rough weather. In the case of sea fastening failed, chain has to be available onboard to secure
any loose equipment before rectifying another welding was made to rectify the problem.

Throughout the job, high pressure coflexip hose (umbilical pumping line) was used to pump treatment fluid from barge into the
well. Coflexip hose requires special mounted skid both in platform and in the barge. The skid that installed in the barge stern
equipped with automatic disconnect device. During emergency situation, the coflexip hose shall have the ability to be disconnected
without having crew to operate from nearby.

Due to distance between platform and the barge, installation of gangway is impractical. During this operation transport boat was
used as a mean of personnel transfer between platform and the barge. To cater for this requirement landing area needs to be
modified to be located away from working deck. As any other marine operation wearing life jacket is mandatory at all time during
personnel transfer to/from the transport boat.

Personnel competency was also needs to be plan in advance. Due to high profile, and first time application on South China Sea,
Service Company needs to provide personnel that has an experience working in barge operation. At all time, no proposed
dedicated personnel, or rotational personnel have less than 1 year experience. On the next project, as the lesson learn and best
practice has been gathered, personnel with less than 1 year experience can have limited participation on operation.

Emergency Response Plan

As Coiled Tubing tubing reel located on a boat and the injector located on platform, an emergency response plan needs to be
develop to provide guidance during emergency (i.e. bad weather situation). The two most important items that shall be
disconnected during emergency situation are:
1. Coiled Tubing that connecting CT Reel and Injector Head. For this purpose, special mounted BOP was installed on the
CT Reel. During emergency, this BOP shall isolate the pressure and fluids inside CT.
2. Umbilical line that was installed for pumping purpose needs to be disconnected away from platform.

Due to above, emergency response plan for disconnecting sequence were prepare in advance. There are two main emergency
response plans that were prepared for this operation. These are planned disconnect, and emergency disconnect.

A planned disconnect procedure shall be activated when the barge can no longer keep station and must move away from the
platform. A planned disconnect (figure 5) will take less than 20 minutes, and may be changed to an emergency disconnect at any
time.

The emergency disconnects procedure takes place in less than 1 minute (figure 6) and is only used if there is no time to follow the
planned disconnect procedure. This shall be applicable only when the weather limitation suddenly observed during operation, that
limiting personnel time to prepare for planned disconnect procedure.

It is important to realize that the planned and emergency disconnect procedures are only designed to release the barge from the
platform. Emergency Response Plan involving well control situation, service company specific contingency plan, and PMO
operating safety standards shall be implemented for those specific emergency situation.

Communication is vital during any of the above emergency response plan. Personnel on the barge and on the platform should be in
direct contact all the time. During emergency, if direct communication through radio is not permittable due to weather condition,
an agreed sirene signal from platform to the barge and vice-versa are going to be used to replace the radio.
SPE 126827 7

Operation Result

Well 1 PLATFORM 1

The objective of this job was to remove the wax build up in the wellbore by bullheading technique. Solvent as base chemical was
used as treatment fluid. Unfortunately post slickline drift run shows that no changes with pre slickline hung up depth. Based on
that, it was decided to carry the wax removal operation using coiled tubing utilizing high jetting tool. Different solvent were
pumped through high jetting tool, enable the tool to be lowered down until reaches target clean up depth. Post slickline drift run
further confirm that the tubing was cleared from wax, and with 2.78 gauge ring the tools able to tag until No-Go depth.

Well 2 PLATFORM 2

The objective of this operation is to perform sand clean out in Well 2. During this operation sand separator was used due to
incapability of production system for handling sand at surface. Due to barge size limitation, several modifications on sand
separator system were requires to place sand separator package on platform. Separate surface handling program was develop to
overcome this limitation.

Coiled tubing was run in the well by pumping at minimum rate. Due to high sea swell CT speed has to be reduced from 40 fpm to
25-30 fpm. CT begins to penetrate sand while performing pull test on every 100 ft of penetration depth. The operation went as per
plan with sand collected in return. During the job, small pill of acid has to pump to aid CT in getting deeper penetration.

At some point during the job, the operation has to be stop due to rough weather. Plan emergency disconnect was implemented, and
the barge must move away from production platform. Quick disconnect on coflexip hose was activated and CT pipe was cut
without no issues. Review on risk assesment with offshore crew, and frequent drill, made all the crew aware on their roles during
emergency situation.

Well 3 PLATFORM 3

The objective of this run is to set multi set mechanical packer and to shut off water out zone by pumping fluid through mechanical
packer. As depth correlation, profile nipple locator was used in Bottom Hole Assembly.

The packer and mechanical locator assembly was run in hole. Prior reaching target depth, a sequence packer activation procedure
was done to test the integrity of the packer. As per program, the planning was to have the packer release and continue RIH into
target depth. During this stage, high pulling weight was observed indicating unsuccessful release. Extremely high forces were
applied to release the packer from stuck point. After more that 2 days trying to get the packer assembly released, it was decided to
drop ball and left the packer assembly in hole. The tool was able to be released and coiled tubing pipe was able to be pulled to
surface.

Overall Project Summary

The first CT Barge operation in South China Sea is a break through for PMO. The project team has proved that performing CT
Barge operation in hostile Souch China Sea can be performed with proper engineering planning, and risk management. As a result,
zero HSE and LTI has been recorded during the entire operation. The operational standard, best practice, and lesson learn were
captured and shall become model not only for any Petronas subsidiary, but also for another Oil and Gas company operating in
South China Sea. This project was successful to prove the concept of CT Barge intervention within small field platform. Total of
10,268 man hours, 43 barge operating days, and 347 hours of well intervention operation was achieve with zero HSE and LTI.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thanks PETROLIAM NASIONAL BERHAD (PETRONAS) and PETRONAS Carigali Sdn. Bhd. Management staff
for their support and permission to publish this paper. We also would like to express appreciation for the contribution from Schluberger Well
Services Kemaman, Malaysia and Ibnusina Sdn. Bhd. as the workbarge contractors.
8 SPE 126827

References

R. Arangath., P. Falxa., M. Ackers., M. Ramsey., D. Poirault. Paper SPE 81714, presented at the 2003 SPE/IcoTA Coiled Tubing
Conference in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 8-9 April 2003.

Pearson, J.E., and Starck, P.E., Coiled Tubing Operations Performed From a Vessel. Paper SPE 46049, presented at the 1998
SPE/IcoTA Coiled Tubing Roundtable held in Houston, 15-16 April 1998
SPE 126827 9

Figure 1: Equipment Layout on Barge

Figure 2: Working barge crane consuming lot of deck space

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Figure 3: Actual CT Equipment Sporting on the Barge

Figure 4: Operation Organogram

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Figure 5: Planned Disconnect Sequence

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Figure 6: Emergency Disconnect Sequence

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Figure 7: Sample of Anchor sequence