KENNELLEY & ASSOCIATES HELP CURTAIL LONGEST RUNNING OFFSHORE OIL SPILL IN U.S. HISTORY
The Couvillion Group was contracted by the USCG to design, build, install and operate a Rapid Response System to capture the oil that had been causing a sheen on the ocean surface at Taylor Energy’s Mississippi Canyon Block MC 20 site for the past 14+ years. Kennelley & Associates was brought into the Couvillion leadership team to help develop, deploy and maintain this new technology system. The system consisted of a containment device (Porch cantilevered off the downed platform jacket and a shallow dome located approximately 5’ off the seabed), a 3-phase separator and oil storage containers located on the jacket at a depth of approximately 470ft. The designed system was open to the environment. This allowed for hydrocarbon gas to be purged back into the seawater at the separator and for seawater to be vented back into the sea at the bottom of the separator so that the oil could be collected and flow in the oil storage containers. As oil flows into the oil storage containers water is displaced from the bottom of the storage containers. Four inch valves and armored hoses were used to interconnect system components. On a periodic basis (3-5 weeks) the oil collected in the subsea storage containers is pumped to a surface vessel using a submersible hydraulic pump. The surface vessel contains processing equipment to “knock-out” the gas and separate free water from the crude oil that is collected and taken back to shore for recycle.
The contracted work began on November 19th, 2018 and the system began collection of oil on April 12, 2019 and continues to collect the oil and stop the surface sheen on a daily basis.