THREE60 Energy
Features

OGV Well Management Article – January 2025

Authored by Nick Ford, Managing Director

Nick Ford is the Managing Director of the UK wells group at THREE60 Energy, responsible for well activities in the UK and international markets. He has a strong background in well management across the well lifecycle. Nick has played a pivotal role in enhancing the company’s wells offering, particularly in late life and decommissioning. He has been instrumental in the success of several well operator and decommissioning projects in recent years, drawing on his decades of expertise in the energy sector.

Nick continues to drive innovation and excellence through the wells business at THREE60, ensuring the company remains at the forefront of the energy sector. Here, he discusses THREE60’s integrated well operatorship offering and why that sets THREE60 apart.

As a leading global provider, THREE60 Energy offers innovative engineering, technology, and energy transition solutions across the asset life cycle, from design to decommissioning. The company believes there is a need for a cost-effective late-life outsourced asset management solution. Indeed, THREE60 was established in 2016 with this goal in mind. The vision is to enable clients to focus on their core production activities or streamline their operations in line with current activity levels. The integration of THREE60’s service lines across subsurface, wells, subsea, EPCC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Commissioning), and operations places the company in a unique position to deliver these services as individual product lines as well as fully integrated projects. A recent award for a multi-asset decommissioning scope on the UKCS, working across multiple THREE60 service lines, showcases this capability and is a significant step on the journey to realize the vision of the company.

Delivering on the UKCS since 2004, THREE60 companies have a long history of success. The terms and use of the description “well management” are wide and varied. However, within THREE60, well management is viewed as projects delivered for a customer where THREE60 undertakes the engineering, planning and procurement, operational execution, and closeout of a project across the well lifecycle. After Sir Ian Wood’s Maximizing Economic Recovery report in 2014 and the subsequent regulatory changes, THREE60 has also provided outsourced well operator services from exploration, appraisal, and development drilling, production operations, interventions and maintenance, through to late life and decommissioning. Simplistically, the well operator provision includes the well management service, but also the regulatory responsibility for well activities including environmental permitting and emergency response.

With well engineering hubs in Aberdeen, Great Yarmouth, Norway, USA, and Malaysia, THREE60’s wells teams are located across the world. Our team of over 250 well engineering experts specializes in every aspect of well engineering and drilling operations. This extensive expertise allows us to provide tailored solutions that meet the unique needs of each customer, ensuring high-quality technical input based on experience and knowledge not only from the area of operations but also from the wider engineering teams.

THREE60’s track record in well management and well operatorship on the UKCS is long established with over 60 well delivery projects and a number of ongoing production well operatorship assignments. Initially focused on well management project delivery, the company has recently shifted its focus almost entirely to well operatorship delivery due to the changing nature of the UKCS. This change has been driven by the larger operators looking for more cost-effective and focused delivery models and due to the divestment of assets by the traditional supermajors to small to mid-sized license operators with a business model based on outsourcing.

Recognizing that customers were looking for a more integrated offering in the production phase, THREE60 developed its production well operator (PWO) and pipeline operatorship services. Appointed the PWO for an SNS development in 2020, THREE60 successfully managed the well integrity of several gas wells, increasing the production uptime and reliability through a targeted maintenance project. The outsourced model allows the license operator to undertake an assurance role, thus reducing the demands on its internal organization. In taking the next step, THREE60 developed an integrated well and pipeline operator solution, allowing customers to acquire subsea well and pipeline systems that are tied back to host infrastructure operated by another party. In doing so, THREE60 manages the interfaces with the host infrastructure and all the well and pipeline integrity management in an integrated manner.

Renowned for its expertise in well engineering and management, THREE60’s wells team underpins its well management capability with well engineering studies spanning the entire well lifecycle, from high-level concept and feasibility to front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies, well maintenance and intervention, and decommissioning. The team has successfully delivered hundreds of studies and technical projects, demonstrating its ability to handle complex well operations and deliver results that exceed expectations.

One of the key strengths of THREE60 is its integrated approach to well management and operatorship across its six global service lines. This integration ensures that all technical plans, cost estimates, and schedules are aligned with our customer’s asset objectives, providing them with a comprehensive and aligned solution.

The Subsurface team at THREE60 plays a crucial role in the integrated asset management value proposition. They excel in reservoir modelling, production optimization, development planning, production engineering services, and integrated decommissioning strategies. THREE60’s cutting-edge technologies, such as Poseidon for locating and targeting the remaining oil and TITAN for production management, further enhance the ability to deliver innovative and effective solutions to maximize economic recovery.

Providing a comprehensive range of subsea services, the Subsea team covers the entire lifecycle of subsea infrastructure, from design and specification through to manufacturing, installation, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning. The approach is designed to reduce costs, mitigate risks, and maximize the uptime of essential subsea infrastructure.

In addition to the traditional brownfield engineering and modification work scopes, the EPCC team provides consultancy services across all the service lines, covering scopes such as asset acquisition/divestment due diligence, concept and select studies, asset optimization, and decarbonization/electrification and technical due diligence.

In a similar vein to outsourced well operator, THREE60 Energy also provides outsourced Duty Holder services on the UKCS, enabling customers to outsource the day-to-day management and running of their offshore installations. The recent contract award identifies a further three offshore assets to be managed under our outsourced Duty Holder model with the potential for a further three later stages. On a global basis, THREE60 also manages the running of a number of FPSOs/FSOs, providing transferable knowledge into the UKCS or elsewhere.

With the integration of its service lines, THREE60 is uniquely positioned to offer fully integrated well management and well operator services, utilizing the skills, experience, and scale of THREE60 to deliver our customers’ projects safely and efficiently.

Tags: THREE60 Energy
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