Project showcase

Macondo’s Deepwater Horizon Disaster - Investigation, Capping and Relief Well Drilling

Project goal

As part of the incident investigation team and engineering task force, Add Energy provided dynamic analysis, simulations, planning and evaluations for the kill operation.

Asset:

Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico

What We Did

Add Energy contributed throughout the entire kill operation and provided specialists contributing and assisting in three different teams:

  1. Investigation Team
    The main task was to gather facts and to investigate the circumstances around the time of the incident in order to determine how, when and what went wrong.
  2. Top Kill Team
    The primary kill operation was to install a Capping Stack on top of the existing subsea BOP, shut-in the well and bullhead hydrocarbons down the well.
  3. Relief Well Team
    The second kill operation involved pumping cement into the lower part of the wellbore through intersection by a relief well. In parallel with other teams working relentlessly to kill the well, our experts focused on determining the flow path scenarios.

The OLGA-WELL-KILL software, tailor made by Add Energy proved to be a unique and significant tool used during investigation and kill planning.

What We Did

The Result

  • The well was statically killed August 3rd, 24 days after installing the Capping Stack and 87 days after the incident occurred. The primary relief well intersected on September 16th and confirmed that the well was killed and plugged with cement.
  • The top kill and the dynamic kill operations relied 100% on input from Add Energy’s dynamic simulations.
The Result
AL Linkedin RWIS Brett and Morten3
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"The court found Mr Emilsen (AddEnergy's Blowout Specialist) generally credible and believes that his modelling was accurate"

Morten Haug Emilsen, Add Energy

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