Drilling Ship Drifting in Alaska Waters

[tomahawk6]

High seas drama. Help is on the way but in 12-13 hours it could be in trouble if it runs aground near the Trinity Islands.

http://news.yahoo.com/drill-ship-crew-remain-stalled-144705295.html

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- High winds and waves prevented the Coast Guard from evacuating an 18-member crew of a stalled Shell drill ship in the Gulf of Alaska and another vessel was on the way Saturday to prevent the ship from drifting into the Trinity Islands, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Helicopter crews tried unsuccessfully Friday night and early Saturday morning to evacuate the crew of the Kulluk, which has no propulsion system and is dependent on other vessels to move it around, Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class David Mosley said.

Winds of over 60 mph and waves of 20 to 25 feet were too much for an evacuation, Mosley said. "It's a very dynamic situation," he said.

The Royal Dutch Shell PLC drill ship stalled after the engines of its tow vessel Aiviq failed on Thursday while on the way from the Aleutian Islands to Seattle for winter maintenance work. Since then, the ship has drifted west from Kodiak, and was about 27 miles from the Trinity Islands early Saturday morning, Mosley said.

"We don't want it to go aground," he said. "When a vessel goes aground, it's directly played upon by the waves hitting it and having it hit something solid."

At the rate it is drifting, the Kulluk could hit the islands in 12-13 hours, he said.

The Nanuq, Shell's principal oil spill response vessel, was expected to reach the drill ship within hours. The plan was for Nanuq crews to attach a tow line to the Kulluk and take control as the 360-foot Aiviq continues its repairs.

A relief tug under contract with Shell, The Guardsman, left Seward and arrived Friday to try to provide more propulsion, while the Coast Guard delivered repair parts by air to the Aivik. The Aiviq crew was able to restart one engine, and with generators had enough power to maintain its position.

The Kulluk is one of two drill ships Shell operated this year in the short Arctic Ocean open water season. A round ship with a 160-foot derrick, it resembles a bowling pin in a bowl. It was designed for extended drilling in Arctic waters, and has an ice-reinforced, funnel-shape hull 266 feet in diameter. The conical shape is designed to deflect moving ice downward and break it into small pieces.

The Aiviq is owned and operated by Edison Chouest Offshore of Galliano, La.

 

[Scott]

Can't wait to see the spin on this one.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Photos and specification sheets (scroll half way down page) of the drilling ship here:

http://www.mxak.org/community/kulluk/kullukmore.html

 

[Scott]

The third last photo in Michael's linked article is what I expect a drill "ship" to look like (The Discoverer), but meh. Hell, the las jackup I worked on is technically a vessel but she almost never goes anywhere under her own power.

Needles and pins, I guess.

Only a crew of 18 while under tow? Guess that makes sense after that Russian jackup sank last year. I'm used to seeing more is all.

 

[Good2Golf]

So what do the 3 x EMDs do if not as prime movers?

Cheers
G2G

 

[larry Strong]

Run the gen sets for all electric power. All the equipment - drawworks, mud pumps etc are run by electric motors.


Larry

 

[Scott]

Run the gen sets for all electric power. All the equipment - drawworks, mud pumps etc are run by electric motors.


Larry

Ding, ding, ding.

I've been on board jackups using their own power to pin over a location, but that's the most movement I've seen under own power.

 

[Good2Golf]

Run the gen sets for all electric power. All the equipment - drawworks, mud pumps etc are run by electric motors.


Larry

Wow...6MW if a phooq of a lot of electrons!

When devoted to own power, are they electric azipods or something that provide propulsion?


Cheeers
G2G

 

[tomahawk6]

Update: The Coast Guard has removed the crew.

http://www.adn.com/2012/12/29/2737708/crews-tow-shell-drill-vessel-to.html

Two powerful ships towed a round Shell drilling vessel through rough water south of Kodiak Island late Saturday and into the Gulf of Alaska with the hopes of weathering a storm in the open ocean before heading for a safe harbor.

The new course away from land for the tiny flotilla represented a change of plans from Friday, when officials hoped the vessels could reach protected waters by Saturday afternoon. The still-unresolved drama that began unfolding Thursday is just the latest in a series of mishaps for Royal Dutch Shell in its offshore drilling efforts in the Arctic this year.

In a series of failures that began Thursday, the 360-foot Aiviq, owned by Edison Chouest of Louisiana and under contract to Shell, briefly lost its towline with the $290 million, 266-foot-wide Kulluk, then suffered a complete shutdown of its four engines early Friday. Another Shell-contracted tugboat, the Guardsman, arrived about 2 p.m. Friday and connected to the Kulluk and Aiviq.

The Kulluck's cone shape was designed for handling Arctic ice while anchored at a drilling site, but under tow in a fierce North Pacific storm, it was tossing and turning perilously. About 9 p.m. Friday, Shell contacted the Coast Guard and asked for help in removing the crew "due to safety concerns for the personnel on board in the rolling and pitching vessel in heavy seas," the Coast Guard said.

The first efforts failed because of weather, but by Saturday afternoon two Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters had removed the Kulluk's 18-person crew and flown them to Kodiak, Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer David Mosley said.

"It's precautionary measure. They weren't in any immediate danger," Mosley said. "As this continued to unfold, they just wanted to mitigate any potential issues with that crew onboard."

Coast Guard helicopters were also able to deliver a ton of engine parts and technicians to the Aiviq, and the ship's crew had two of its four engines up and running by Saturday morning, Shell said.



What started as 20-foot seas and 40 mph wind built to 35-foot seas and gusts to more than 50 mph, the Coast Guard said.

The weather and the combined weight of the Kulluk and Aiviq were too much for the tugboat Guardsman, which was unable to stop the vessels from drifting. By 5:30 a.m. Saturday, its towline had also broken free, the Coast Guard said. Saturday morning, the Kulluk was about 27 miles from the Trinity Islands and drifting at a rate that would have had it hitting the islands in as little as 12 hours, Mosley told the Associated Press.

"We don't want it to go aground," he said. "When a vessel goes aground, it's directly played upon by the waves hitting it and having it hit something solid."

In what Shell spokesman Curtis Smith described as "cascading assets into the theater," another Shell-contracted ship, the Nanuq, had been sent from Seward at the first sign of trouble. It arrived Saturday morning. The Aiviq soon had all four of its engines running, and with the Nanuq's help, was towing the Kulluk farther out to sea to the southeast late Saturday, Smith said. The plan was to avoid more bad weather and the worst-case scenario that the vessels could again drift toward land, he said.

A third tugboat, the Alert, was en route Saturday from Prince William Sound, the Coast Guard said. The Alert first arrived in Valdez in 2000 as part of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.'s disaster response system. The Coast Guard said that of the vessels responding to the emergency, only the Aiviq and the Alert were capable of towing the Kulluk.

"We're still looking at options for safe harbor, but we're going to wait out some predicted bad weather before making a run to the north," Smith said. "We feel like the situation has stabilized and the tow is secure, but it's critical that we remain focused on 'what if?' "

New details of the earlier wrangling to get the Aiviq and Kulluk under control also emerged Saturday.

The Aiviq first ran into trouble Thursday while towing the Kulluk from Dutch Harbor to Everett, Wash., where it was to receive off-season maintenance, according to Shell. The vessels were about 50 miles south of Kodiak Island and east of the Trinity Islands, fighting the bucking seas, when a buckle on the towline connecting them broke, Smith said. The Aiviq's crew attached an emergency towline to the Kulluk, but then the Aiviq's four engines failed, likely fouled by bad fuel, Smith said.

Shell said it doesn't know why the towline broke, how the Aiviq's fuel was contaminated, and if the two problems were related.

"That's something we'll have to investigate once this incident is over," Smith said.

The Alex Haley, a Coast Guard cutter on patrol in the Gulf, arrived to help and connected a towline to the stricken vessels early Friday, the Coast Guard said in a statement. At that point, the wind was blowing 40 mph, and the seas were 35 feet and building, the Coast Guard said.

"The heavy seas, strong winds, and sheer mass of both Aiviq and Kulluk created enormous challenges for Alex Haley to establish and maintain the tow," the Coast Guard statement said. "At approximately 6:30 a.m. the crew of the Alex Haley reported that the towline had parted and become entangled in the ship's port propeller."

The cutter was ordered to return to Kodiak, and the Coast Guard launched two others: the Hickory, from Homer, and the Spar, from Kodiak, said Mosley, with the Coast Guard.

A unified command was assembled Friday, bringing together Shell, the Coast Guard, Edison Chouest, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Kodiak Borough.

 

[Good2Golf]

Did AIVIQ have a fuel problem?  Seems odd to lose all four mains.  Interestingly, USCGC Alex Haley was four 3516Bs, same mains as the ORCA PTCs.  BZ to the crew of the Alex Haley for getting both the Kulluk and AIVIQ under control.

Regards
G2G

 

[Scott]

Wow...6MW if a phooq of a lot of electrons!

When devoted to own power, are they electric azipods or something that provide propulsion?


Cheeers
G2G

Not certain, it appears they are not pods like on most new generation drillships. On most backups or semisubs they would be single direction thrusters.

Yeah, when you have the metric shitload of draw that the accommodations, mud pumps, draw works, cranes, etc and so on tends to levy on a system you need mucho generation.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Kullak is now aground off Kodiak Island. I hope they can get the drill platform to harbor.

http://news.yahoo.com/drifting-shell-drill-ship-grounds-rocks-off-alaska-153243669--finance.html

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A large drill ship belonging to oil major Shell ran aground off Alaska on Monday night after drifting in stormy weather, company and government officials said.

The ship, the Kulluk, broke away from one of its tow lines on Monday afternoon and was driven to rocks just off Kodiak Island, where it grounded at about 9 p.m. Alaska time, officials said.

The 18-member crew had been evacuated by the Coast Guard late Saturday because of risks from the storm.

With winds reported at up to 60 miles an hour and Gulf of Alaska seas of up to 35 feet, responders were unable to keep the ship from grounding, said Coast Guard Commander Shane Montoya, the leader of the incident command team.

"We are now entering into the salvage and possible spill-response phase of this event," Montoya told a news conference late on Monday night in Anchorage.

There were three minor injuries to people responding to the incident but all personnel have returned to duty.

There is no known spill and no reports of damage yet and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter overflight conducted shortly after the grounding detected no visible sheen.

A spokeswoman for the command team said it would do another overflight during daylight on Tuesday, weather permitting.

The Kulluk has about 139,000 gallons of ultra-low-sulfur diesel on board, and equipment on the Kulluk is estimated to have about 12,000 gallons of combined lube oil and hydraulic fluid.

The grounding of the Kulluk, a conical, Arctic-class drill ship weighing nearly 28,000 gross tons, is a blow to Shell's $4.5 billion offshore program in Alaska.

Shell's plan to convert the area into a major new oil frontier has alarmed environmentalists and many Alaska Natives, but excited industry supporters.

Environmentalists and Native opponents say the drilling program threatens a fragile region that is already being battered by rapid climate change.

"Shell and its contractors are no match for Alaska's weather and sea conditions either during drilling operations or during transit," Lois Epstein, Arctic program director for The Wilderness Society, said in an email.

"Shell's costly drilling experiment in the Arctic Ocean needs to be stopped by the federal government or by Shell itself given the unacceptably high risks it poses to both humans and the environment," she added.

The nearest town is Old Harbor, located on the opposite side of Kodiak Island from where the Kulluk is grounded. Old Harbor is a Native Alutiiq village with 208 residents.

The leading Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives' Natural Resources Committee, Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, said in a statement that this incident and others illustrated the perils of oil drilling in the Arctic.

"Oil companies cannot currently drill safely in the foreboding conditions of the Arctic, and drilling expansion could prove disastrous for this sensitive environment," he said.

BEDEVILLED

The Kulluk's woes began on Friday, when the Shell ship towing it south experienced a mechanical failure and lost its connection to the drill vessel.

That ship, the Aivik, was reattached to the Kulluk early on Monday morning, as was a tug sent to the scene by the operator of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. But the Aivik lost its link Monday afternoon, and the tug's crew could only try to guide the drill ship to a position where, if it grounded, "it would have the least amount of impact to the environment," Montoya said.

The tug Alert intentionally disconnected about 30 minutes before the ground for the protection of the nine crew members aboard the tug.

The Kulluk was used by Shell in September and October to drill a prospect in the Beaufort Sea. It was being taken to Seattle for the off season when the problems began on Friday.

Susan Childs, emergency incident commander for Shell, held out hope that a significant spill from the drill ship was unlikely.

"The unique design of the Kulluk means the diesel fuel tanks are isolated in the center in the vessel and encased in very heavy steel," she told the news conference.

Shell is waiting for weather to moderate "to begin a complete assessment of the Kulluk," she said. "We hope to ultimately recover the Kulluk with minimal or no damage to the environment."

The Kulluk was built in 1983 and had been slated to be scrapped before Shell bought it in 2005. The company has spent $292 million since then to upgrade the vessel.

Shell's Arctic campaign has been bedeviled by problems. A second drill ship, the Discoverer, was briefly detained in December by the Coast Guard in Seward, Alaska, because of safety concerns. A mandatory oil-containment barge, the Arctic Challenger, failed for months to meet Coast Guard requirements for seaworthiness and a ship mishap resulted in damage to a critical piece of equipment intended to cap a blown well.

 

[tomahawk6]

Waiting for calmer weather.Until then the Kullak is out of reach of the Coast Guard/tug boat.

 

[larry Strong]

Waiting for calmer weather.Until then the Kullak is out of reach of the Coast Guard/tug boat.

That's not looking good.


Larry

 

[Fishbone Jones]

At least it appears to be holding itself upright.

 

[Scott]

At least it appears to be holding itself upright.

Might be the rocks doing that ;D

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Either way, it's not on its side

 

[Scott]

The design looks pretty adept at being grounded. More than a semi, IMO. Then again, I've never run one up on the beach.

I can't wait to see the calls to remove the thing because it's big bad oil that's in charge. Meanwhile, the MV Miner has been aground on Scatterie Island for a year and a half and still sits in the same spot.

A major difference between the two is that, in all likelihood, Shell had an emergency response plan in place just in case something like this happened. That's been implemented and they will pay to get the job done as quickly and safely as possible.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The drilling mud is likely more toxic than any oils aboard and the design is likely stronger than your average ship and certainly stronger than a tanker.

 

[Scott]

If using WBM then it's not too bad. OBM and, yes, highly ugly stuff. Either way, not good and in need of a response.