Parker Hannifin motors to tackle Cameron's deep-sea problem
27 Sep 2010
London – Oil and gas flow equipment company Cameron – supplier of the failed blowout preventer (BOP) valve at the centre of the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster – is employing custom built hydraulic motors from Parker Hannifin in an effort to make deep sea oil wells safer.
BOPs are used on oil wells during drilling and completion operations. Positioned at the cap of the well, they are designed to shut quickly around the drill pipe or to seal the open wellbore in the event of a well control problem.
Cameron BOPs are installed on half the floating oil production platforms operating worldwide, and on more than 70% of the mobile jack-up platforms that can be moved to different locations on the seabed.
In 2008, the company’s engineers embarked on a program to develop a new generation of BOPs capable of operating at the extraordinary depths and pressures that the industry was beginning to reach.
While existing devices operated at pressures of up to 15,000psi, Cameron wanted to make BOPs that could work and contain wellbore pressures of 20,000 psi in water depths up to 15000 feet.
These extreme pressures and depths presented huge engineering challenges, both in creating a BOP that could shut quickly enough when required, and in ensuring that, once shut, the device could contain the well with no leaks.
BOPs need to be as compact as possible, so that they don’t take up too much room and to ease installation. They also need to operate reliably for many years in deep see conditions, and routine maintenance must be as straightforward as possible so it can be conducted without disrupting oilfield operations.
During initial prototype conceptual testing the new Cameron BOP hydraulic locking mechanism, initially powered by an off the shelf Parkervane-type motor, was not optimised for the application. With time running out before the prototype was due to be qualification tested,
A Parker team designed a motor for the new hydraulic actuator that could meet the demanding specifications. They applied experience of extreme conditions hydraulic equipment to create a design that used a 250 cc displacement motor designed to operate a hydraulic motor powered locking mechanism able to operate and contain wellbore pressures of up to 20,000psi.
The unit, which was more compact than Cameron’s existing design, also included an array of safety and backup features. It could, for example, be actuated by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in the event of a total hydraulic failure at the wellhead, a first for this application in the oil & gas industry.
Parker manufactured the prototype unit at Parker’s Calzoni Facility in Bologna, Italy and sent the first unit for testing at Cameron in the middle of September.
Cameron put the prototype through an exhaustive validation process over the next two months, and signed off the design for production at the beginning of January 2009. By the end of March, the new actuators were arriving at Cameron’s manufacturing facility for installation on the first of its new generation of BOPs.
To date, said Parker, over 100 motors have been manufactured and shipped to Cameron, they are already being installed on BOP stacks for operation on wells throughout the world.
