Remotely operated abrasive water jet cutting for offshore oil and gas well removal

General Information

The oil and gas industry needs an environmentally friendly way of cutting and removing offshore oil wells that is also cost effective. Abrasive water jet cutting has been developed in recent years for underwater operations and would avoid these problems. However, it has not been possible to use it for removal of oil wells because the gaps between the casings that contain fluids prevent a single cut through all the tubes at one time. The fluid in the gap absorbs the energy of the jet, preventing cutting of the outer case. The JETCUT consortium will develop an abrasive water jet cutting system for oil well removal that will overcome the problem of cutting across the gaps in the casing that contain fluid. That will permit all the casing tubes and annular layers of 'grout' in an oil well to be cut in one pass and the well removed quickly and cleanly with a minimum of disruption to mounds of cuttings on the sea bed.

EU-Programme Acronym and Subprogramme Area	FP5-EESD-1999 (Energy); Key action 6: Economic and efficient energy for a competitive Europe.
Project Type	RTD - CRAFT
Contract Number	CRAFT-1999-70845
Co-ordinator	Circle Technical Services Ltd. (UK)

Total Eligible Costs (€)	Hereon Eligible Costs (€)	EC Funding for Hereon (€)
	319.133

Contact Person at Hereon

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Norbert Huber, Institute of Materials Research, phone: +49-4152-87 2500 (initial contact:Dr. Eckhard Aust, Institute of Materials Research) E-mail contact

Participants

CAPSUM Technology GmbH (DE), Circle Technical Services Ltd. (UK), CM Ingegneria S.R.L. (IT), Lateral AS (NO), National Hyperbaric Centre Ltd. (UK)

Last Update: 16. April 2021