Expanding Helix’s responsible participation in energy trans best-in-class and global leading decommissioning service
Helix Energy Solutions Group, an international offshore energy services company, has evolved over five decades to provide industry leading specialty services to the offshore energy market. Helix Energy Solutions Group Vice President – Special Projects, Daniel Stuart, explained more to Hannah Barnett.
Helix centres its services around a three-legged business model well positioned to facilitate the global energy transition by maximising production of remaining oil and gas reserves, supporting renewable energy developments and decommissioning end-of-life oil and gas fields.
“We are looking at a number of areas where our expertise could be utilised in the offshore wind space, to really future proof the industry,” said Mr Stuart “I think people are always going to be attracted to work in oil and gas, because it's a challenging and technological business. But I also think people are attracted to a company that recognises that the business is transitioning from a high carbon environment to a lower carbon one.”
A job well done
Since moving into the space a decade ago, Helix is now the leading provider of subsea well access services around the world.
“We've done more in that field than all our competitors combined,” said Mr Stuart.
The company notably worked as a first responder after the notorious oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The Helix Q4000 vessel played a key role in a successful ‘static kill’ procedure on the Macondo Well when 32,000 barrels of specially engineered mud and cement were pumped from the
sition by providing es.
Q4000 directly into the well at high pressure, sealing the leak.
“After the Macondo blowout, the company heightened its focus basically on fixing deepwater wells,” recalled Mr Stuart. “As well as expanding into subsea decommissioning, we have become deepwater plumbers to the industry. More recently, through our acquisition of the Alliance group of companies, we are now one of the biggest well services players on the Gulf of Mexico Shelf.”
Indeed, one of Helix’s key strengths is its ability to adapt and evolve, taking transferable skills from the subsea space and repurposing them for the fast-growing offshore wind energy market.
“Our involvement in windfarms is very much at the front end of the construction p rocess,” Mr Stuart explained. “Alongside conducting surveys, we are involved in the removal of boulders, explosive sites and unexploded ordnances on the seabed. All this must be thoroughly
SCHLUMBERGER
Expanding the operational envelope
Intervention technology greatly advanced over the past 20 years to expand the possibilities of what can be done with a lighter footprint. Wireline powered intervention technology can now perform operations previously only possible with coiled tubing, such as milling completion elements of shifting downhole sleeves. Coiled tubing has become more intelligent with real-time data and fibre optics communication for advanced downhole instrumentation.
Expanding downhole intervention options enables more intervention work to be done successfully and economically from light well intervention vessels. We believe that this will further reduce costs and carbon intensity for the industry.
cleared in advance to build an offshore wind farm. And once the foundations and towers are in place, they are linked up with inter-array cables.
Helix has chartered multiple vessels within the past year, specifically to address the offshore wind space and meet the growing demand worldwide.
“We've recently expanded the model from the UK sector to the east coast of
the United States. In addition, we're going to be involved in some of the first wind farm projects taking place in offshore Taiwan, another extremely busy area for offshore wind.”
SPE Offshore
This September, Helix will be represented at the 2023 SPE Offshore event in Aberdeen. The company intends to demonstrate its experience in the decommissioning space, where it is currently working with a variety of notable groups including Petrobras, Trident, Cooper Energy and New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE). Within this context, Helix feels it reflects the zeitgeist of the sector.
“Decommissioning old wells and returning them to their former state is in huge demand in the North Sea and across the world and we are
quite specialised at it,” said Mr Stuart. “So, we are hoping, in a quiet way, to show what we have done.”
Mr Stuart was positive about the longterm business benefits that can be achieved by attending industry events. “People can sometimes take a cynical view,” he said. “But I've never been to a show where I haven't had at least a half dozen very interesting conversations that lead, through other networking, to new opportunities for regular business. More often than not, the really creative stuff comes from the different combinations of what companies can accomplish together.”
After several years of Covid-induced lockdown, this will be the first in-person SPE Offshore event since 2019, making it an especially notable occasion.
“Working remotely can be extremely efficient for certain parts of our business,” Mr Stuart reflected. “But ultimately, what opens new opportunities is getting together with people, challenging ideas, learning about what other services are out there and explaining what you can do. We aren’t creating something that is going to impact our business in the next three months; we are creating something that is going to impact our business – and potentially the industry – in the next three to five years. That’s the way I look at shows like SPE Offshore.”
An alliance with Alliance
In mid-2022, Helix acquired the Alliance group of companies, a Louisiana-based privately held company, that provides services in support of the upstream and
midstream industries in the shallow water Gulf of Mexico Shelf, including decommissioning, intervention, maintenance and repair (IMR), heavy lift and commercial diving services. This acquisition added a fleet of shallow water assets to Helix’s arsenal, including Jones Act-compliant lift boats, offshore supply vessels, a heavy lift derrick barge and diving vessels, as well as plug and abandonment systems, coiled tubing systems and snubbing units.
“I think the acquisition was one of the most impactful things we’ve done in recent years,” said Mr Stuart. “It means that alongside being the largest well access provider for interventions in the subsea space, we’re now one of the largest dry tree intervention and decommissioning companies in the world.”
Another dynamic and significant collaboration started close to a decade ago, when Helix partnered with Schlumberger, now SLB, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. According to Mr Stuart, in the last couple of years the partnership has truly come to fruition.
“Now, when hiring a Helix deepwater vessel anywhere in the world, it comes with a fully integrated spread of well services onboard provided by SLB,” he explained. “It means that instead of having to deal with multiple contractors, the operator only deals with one. We take care of everything else. And just one invoice every month, all run through a Helix contract. We're taking a lot off the operator’s hands, in terms of personnel and frankly, hassle.”
Though similar alliances exist, no other group offers a full range of services including coiled tubing and well testing. “And we are the only alliance who offer a fully risk-shared contract,” said Mr Stuart. “The operator pays for our vessel, so if there’s a problem with any of the services, the entire package is affected. That aligns the need of the operator with that of the vessel provider and the service company.”
Helix have formed partnerships with a range of key subcontractors in order to
be a one-stop-shop for subsea interventions. “One of our key relationships is with Workstrings International, who provide us with high pressure riser systems for our Intervention Riser Systems, a 10K well
access package.” The ‘go-to’ relationship has seen Workstrings providing riser systems and servicing from the Gulf of Mexico to New Zealand.
As a flourishing and evolving business reacting to a rapidly changing industry, Helix remains a company with bright prospects for its future, and for those who run it.
“People like working here,” Mr Stuart concluded. “Our vessels are different from anything else that’s out there. There’s a small company vibe. Employees have a feeling of ownership. “
