Slip joint performance highlighted, improvements urged

Slip joints have improved little in recent years, leading to lost oil, lost revenue and downtime. 

Mr Craig told the IADC Environmental Conference & Exhibition in Stavanger: “The last time I was a driller was on a semisubmersible back in 1991. We had an issue then where we had loss of power on the rig, the slip joint packer failed, an alarm went off, and what happened was that an assistant driller and an engineer went down to the moonpool to operate a valve to operate the secondary back-up system.

“I’m surprised to see that in this day and age, we’re still working with some equipment in the same conditions. I felt we could do something about it.”

Mr Craig was referring to his immersion in an initiative at Transocean to investigate the slip ring problem and, if possible, come up with solutions that would prevent such occurrences from happening in the future, at least across the world’s largest MODU fleet and hopefully prompting other companies to take similar appropriate actions.

He told delegates that tackling the challenge was a reflection of the company’s core values – integrity and honesty – that it was the right thing to do in order to keep risks as low as reasonably practicable and that this clearly implied respect for the environment.

Mr Craig said that a solution was indeed found, including a Buxton automated back-up system, plus a Romar Packer Management System.

His quest continues.