The emergency equipment response deployment exercise aimed at simulating the logistical process of transporting a well capping device, loading it on to a vessel and lowering it over the side before fixing it to a specially-built simulated well on the sea floor.
Total E&P UK executed this exercise on behalf of Oil & Gas UK, a representative organisation for the UK offshore oil and gas industry, and ran from 16 to 26 July 2011 at a site in Block 206/4 off Shetland.
This exercise site was prepared by deploying a specially-built landing base to the seafloor at a depth of 300m to accurately simulate a subsea well.
Oil & Gas UK chief executive Malcolm Webb said that the UK oil and gas industry has a very high level of confidence in its ability to prevent blowouts.
"We haven’t experienced one here in over 20 years – in which time over 7,000 wells have been drilled," Webb said.
OSPRAG said it has undertaken several initiatives to improve well engineering and oil spill response capability, including the development of a well capping device for use in UK waters to seal-off an uncontrolled subsea oil well in the unlikely event of a major well control incident.
