19km east of the Moray Firth Caithness cliffs lies Ithaca Energy owned Jacky; a normally unmanned wellhead platform in the decommissioning phase of its life.
Wood has been the duty holder for Jacky since it was commissioned and tied back to the Beatrice field facilities in 2008 and has managed the evolution of the asset across its lifecycle, through production decline, late life optimisation, cessation of production and, now, decommissioning.
Delivering Value in Partnership
Wood and Ithaca Energy have forged a collaborative and open partnership which has enabled a culture of empowerment and bold decision-making. Challenging the status quo and delivering innovative ideas and solutions have allowed the integrated team to reduce and simplfy interfaces, delivering operational efficiency and cost optimisation.
Working in this way has delivered real and tangible results for Ithaca Energy’s operations, securing increased production efficiency during the operational phase of field life, a material reduction in operating costs for the Beatrice field assets between 2008 and 2015, and the production of 11 million barrels for the Beatrice and Jacky fields between 2008 and 2015.
Smart Decommissioning
In 2019, Wood and Ithaca Energy began accelerating the decommissioning programme for Jacky. In April 2020, the Valaris 101 drilling rig arrived on location at the field and began combined operations for the plug and abandonment (P&A) of the wells.
As a small, normally unmanned platform, one of the key challenges was to ensure the installation and commissioning of safety and environmentally critical systems and services needed for the P&A works. A significant amount of pre-work was carried out to minimise the amount of rig time required for interfacing the two platforms and to reduce the overall project cost and duration.
Wood was able to leverage the depth of its expertise to assist Ithaca Energy and Valaris with the successful and safe delivery of their P&A operations. With the platform having been designed with decommissioning in mind, the removal will be a reversal of the installation process and will be executed in 2021 by Sleipner, the world’s largest heavy lift vessel. The jacket and topsides will be separated at a flange on the monotower, with the topsides removed to the deck of the vessel during the first lift. Water will thereafter be pumped into the three suction buckets to float the jacket, ready to be lifted to Sleipner.
The way Ithaca Energy, Wood and the other stakeholders have worked together in order to safely execute the work demonstrates the enhanced level of success that can be achieved when working in true partnership.