Page 76: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jun/Jul 2014)

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People

Spotlight

By Elaine Maslin

Big game hunting in the intervention business th wen Kratz marks his 60 birthday has changed, and continues to change, contract, with options, with BP. Helix

O this year, but he’s far from set- he says. There had been a shift from Well Ops will also operate intervention tling down. The CEO of Helix Energy vertical to horizontal trees to facilitate services on two newbuild monohulls

Solutions Group, including the business completion and recompletion operations. being built for Siem Offshore, for client unit Well Ops, has the global interven- Now companies are going back to verti- Petrobras, on a four-year contract, with tion business in his sights, with an cal trees, partly because of increasing options. expanding ? eet and a passion for the pressure requirements and to allow tree Kratz thinks Helix will build at least industry. recovery and repair without pulling the one more, giving a total of 10 vessels,

It is not quite the game warden job completion. “This is why I like interven- before 2018, and that the global ? eet he had always wanted, and set out tion,” Kratz says. “It is constantly chang- will add up to about 20, maintaining the to Kenya to ? nd after completing a ing and you have to ? gure out where company’s 50% market share, by vessel degree in biology and chemistry in New the market is going. You have to look at numbers.

York. Luckily for Helix, Kratz’s career all the solutions a company is going to Norway’s Island Offshore currently has changed when he met a North Sea need.” three vessels, Malaysia’s Bumi Armada diver from Rhodesia, who persuaded

However you look at it, there will be has the Synergy, in partnership with him to take the same path. In 1984, a need for more vessels, led by the ever Fugro, and Aker Solutions has the Skandi

Kratz joined Cal Dive, which eventu- increasing numbers of subsea, especially Aker. FTO Services, founded in 2012 as a ally became Helix Well Ops, as a dive deepwater, wells. joint venture between FMC Technologies superintendent.

Helix Wells Ops currently operates ? ve and Edison Chouest Offshore, is also

What fascinates—and drives—Kratz vessels (three light well intervention and bringing out a vessel. is the industry’s changing nature and two heavy intervention), capturing about “There is a lot of difference in the needs. “There are a lot of different things 50% of the global ? eet. They are the market and not one right solution, that is these intervention why we have our ? eet,” Kratz says. “We vessels can do. But, are not trying to come up with a product, maybe ? ve years from we are a solution provider.” “This is why I now there could be

What surprises Kratz is the time it has a decommissioning taken the industry to adopt intervention like intervention, vessel. I see light technologies, and now the interest in it is constantly intervention vessels, using it. Instead of having an under-uti- changing and you wireline vessels, top lized specialist vessel, the ? rm is having hole drilling vessels, to aggressively build up its ? eet to meet have to ? gure out vessels specializing in demand. where the market “We knew it (the Q4000, delivered just doing production in 2002) would be required eventu- enhancement. Some is going.” ally,” Kratz says. “Once you go deep, of them could also the only way to develop is with subsea do well start up and

Owen Kratz wells and if you have subsea wells clean up.“Then there you would have to be able to access

Seawell, Well Enhancer and H534 (a con- is decommissioning. Decommissioning them. That’s why we started to position verted drillship) monohulls, the Q4000 is changing faster than we can design for. ourselves in deep water, but it was way semisubmersible, and the chartered

Probably 80% of the intervention market too early.”

Skandi Constructor and HPI monohulls.

has historically been decommissioning,

Others see the opportunity too. “There

In addition, it has on order the Q5000 where producers felt most comfortable are a lot of people trying to ? gure out and the larger Q7000 semisubmersible, trying it out, and there is a big back log how to use it,” he says. “There is a lot of both being built by Sembcorp Marine’s in decommissioning, and post-Macondo, reinventing the wheel. We have had the

Jurong Shipyard subsidiary in Singapore, going forward, you may not be able to dubious honor of learning from mistakes and due for delivery in 2015 and 2016 decommission as you used to.”

Not only that, but Xmas tree design respectively. The Q5000 has a ? ve-year over the last 20 years.”

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