Sureclean Limited has recently completed a major High Pressure Water Jetting Cold Cutting project in the Gulf of Mexico. The project had a requirement to engineer a solution to safely, effectively and efficiently remove a 4 inch layer of composite material coating to facilitate NDT inspection and repair to the sea bed manifolds, without damaging the flow line.

In 2006 BP conducted rigorous pre-commissioning tests on their Thunderhorse Subsea operation, 150 miles south of New Orleans. As a consequence they decided to retrieve and rebuild all of the sea-bed production equipment from the field.

The project had a requirement to engineer a solution to safely, effectively and efficiently remove a 4 inch layer of composite material coating to facilitate NDT inspection and repair to the sea bed manifolds, without damaging the flow line.  Importantly, the requirement was to ensure containment of all water and debris arising from the repair operation - this was the part of the project which Sureclean were awarded.

John Barron, Sureclean's Managing Director, said "This was an extremely challenging project because we could not make even the slightest "cut" into the actual flow line sections during the removal of the coating.  Furthermore the area in which we had to execute the project was "environmentally sensitive", meaning we had to ensure 100% catchment and containment of all water and debris arising from the operation."

"The project comprised two distinct phases.  Firstly, a development phase which involved 6 months of extensive trials and technology development to engineer and perfect a cutting solution.  This took place at the Heerema Marine Contractors' welding facility in Vlissingen in The Netherlands.  During this period our operators underwent stringent "project specific" training programmes, complementing and building upon our already comprehensive in-house training regimes."

"Following this successful planning phase we proceeded to the live operational phase, offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.  The flow lines were lifted from depths up to 1,900 metres onto either the Thialf (the largest Deepwater Construction Vessel in the world capable of a tandem lift of 14,200 t) or the Balder (a Deepwater Construction Vessel capable of a tandem lift of 6,300 t) both of which are operated by Heerema Marine Contractors.  This allowed the removal of sections of the composite, exposing the welds for NDT inspection, remedial repairs, re-coating and re-use as appropriate."

Concluding, John Barron said "We are delighted to have been involved in such a testing project which presented a significant challenge to our personnel, equipment and work practices.  The project was successfully completed without any safety or environmental incident proving the success of the engineered cutting solution.  A total of 21 Sureclean personnel were involved in the project which commenced early 2007 and was completed second quarter 2008, generating turnover of around $2.5 million to Sureclean."

"Having been awarded this project against stiff competition from several global companies we are proud of our achievements, demonstrating that we have what it takes to deliver quality services, safely and to strict environmental standards."