Patent Success For World-First Well Kill Hardware

Add Energy & Trendsetter Engineering’s RWIS tool receives second US patent

Add Energy, the international energy consultancy and software provider, and its partner Trendsetter Engineering, have secured a second US patent for their world-first well kill equipment, they confirmed today (June 27, 2019).

The Relief Well Injection Spool (RWIS) is the world’s only well kill solution that is capable of killing a blowing well with just one relief well – a process that typically would require two or more relief wells when faced with high discharge rated wells.

The RWIS received its first US patent in 2018 for the protection of the hardware. This second patent covers the process and system for killing a well through the use of relief well injection spools.

Morten Haug Emilsen, Senior Vice President of Well Control at Add Energy commented, “In addition to theRWIS assuring single relief well contingency, the RWIS also enables operators to optimize well economics and help unlock projects that wouldn’t normally be sanctioned. In purchasing access rights to theRWIS, operators are able to comply with legislation and in addition, reduce the number of wells required to meet production targets by increasing the completion size of the well bore, reducing CAPEX costs and maximizing production.”

Add Energy partnered with subsea hardware experts Trendsetter Engineering to design and develop the RWIS in 2015. Securing the second patent is an important milestone for both companies.

Brett Morry, Technical Director at Trendsetter Engineering added: “We are proud to receive a second patent for the RWIS. Not only does this patent validate the innovation in the design of the RWIS, but it also protects the means and methodology our experts created to use the RWIS for performing dynamic well kill operation via a single relief well.”

RWIS Methodology:

The RWIS increases the pump rate of kill mud into the blowing well by up to four times the rate of traditional methods. It achieves this by removing bottle-necks caused by restrictive choke and kill lines from the surface vessel to the seabed.

The spool, which pumps in excess of 200 barrels of kill mud per minute, is a significant advance for the industry. It allows the utilization of multiple vessels as opposed to the traditional method which requires the drilling of multiple relief wells.

Add Energy has extensive well kill experience - its experts were part of the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo relief well, top well kill and investigation teams. Other projects include providing multiphase flow modelling and well control supervision during the Elgin gas blow out and similar support during the Montara blowout.The company is headquartered in Stavanger and has offices in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. The group provides specialist engineering and software solutions to the energy sector including engineering studies and improvement plans, technical assessments, incident investigations and support, performance analysis and management, strategic advice, reporting and benchmarking, production studies, testing and planning, process development and training.

Houston-based Trendsetter Engineering is a premier provider of specialised subsea solutions for oil and gas companies across the globe. Its Subsea Well Control Response division, namely Source Control Solutions, provides industry with response planning and services including SCERP’s,  instructor led training for basic and advanced source control and eLearning software, drill and exercise support including design, facilitation, SME support and ROV simulation services and actual response support with provision of tactical response teams, SME and Engineering Support, including hardware solutions.

For further information visit www.addenergy.no/rwis