ÇAĞRILI KONUŞMALAR / KEYNOTES Invited Speeches ... - TPJD

Black Sea Ultra Deepwater Drilling Operations and TPAO
Recep Atalay, Selı̇n Kırbıyık
Turkish Petroleum Corporation, Drilling Department, Ankara
In 2010, in the Turkish Black Sea Sector, 3 wells has been drilled with water depths more than
1800 m. Each can be classified as wildcat wells when their distances and uncertainties are
considered.Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) has at least 50% share on these wells. TPAO
was the operator of the two wells, where in the last one, Sürmene-1, was the sole ownser. World’s
leading petroleum companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, Petrobras also involved in this project as
either the operator or the partner. There has been a considerable increase in exploration and
production facilities in the industry with the increasing oil prices since 2004. The only sector
that was not affected by the 2008 worldwide economical crisis was the ultra deep water drilling
operations. Operations in the Black Sea were held during the most active period of the industry.
Therefore, it embraces its own challenges in various manners. It has taken 4 years to bring in
a competent drilling unit to Black Sea, which can be considered as a remote area. It is even
harder to sign a short-term contract to drill a couple of wells. Even though the idea of sharing
the materials and services with partners seems logical and practical, it has its own management
challenges. It needs significant importance and management that the offshore industry applied
its new methodologies first in Turkey and for TPAO. The most important aspect of a project of
this scale, is to form a project team that is capable of reaching the objectives of the project and
is to provide a working environment that makes it easier to work in synergy. The purpose of this
study to define how an ultra deep water drilling project is managed beginning from the planning
phase, which has taken place in Black Sea with an inadequate infrastructure, challenging and
complicated logistics environment, limited experienced and qualified human resources and an
area that has inadequate and complicated rules, and share it with the industry, universities and
interested audience.
Keywords: Black Sea Offshore, Ultra Deepwater Drilling Operations (UDWD), Mobile Offshore
Drilling Unit (MODU), Dynamic Positioning (DP), Semi Submersible Drilling Unit, Drillship, Drilling
Services Agreement (DSA), Rig Farm Out Agreement (RFOA), Basis of Design (BoD), Management
of Change (MoC), Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Project Team
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