Page 18: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2013)

Recent trends toward closer collaboration between operators and contractors?who after all share an interest in avoiding incidents and promoting safe operations?are a good sign for the industry. But it takes the right kind of partners to bene t from the arrange- ment?an operator must be willing to include its contractor partner in the early stages of engineering and risk assessment, and a contractor needs to have the expertise to advise and support the client effectively. When done well, these kinds of collaborations have the potential to deliver safer and more in- novative technologies that bene t everyone. A recent subsea P&A project involving Chet Morrison Contractors and Helix ERT provides an example of an operator/contractor partner- ship that resulted in a win-win situation for both companies and for the industry as well.Operator Helix ERT hired Chet Morrison Contractors to pro- vide well plugging and abandonment and diving services on a 2012 4-well Subsea P&A project in the VR, SMI and HI  elds. While thorough job planning and risk assessments were performed prior to mobilization, there are always unantici- pated challenges once work begins on site. It was at the  rst location of the project when it was discovered that the bottom pro le and speci cs associated with the subsea tree would re- quire longer jet time and unwanted risks for the Chet Morrison divers. Together the teams evaluated options, one of which was using existing subsea cutting methods--meaning more Case Study SHARC can be deployed by Chet Morrison?s 240 foot, 4-point DSV Joanne Morrison, thus avoiding the higher cost of larger spreads.April 201318 MTRMTR #3 (18-33).indd 18MTR #3 (18-33).indd 184/3/2013 10:55:59 AM4/3/2013 10:55:59 AM