Unique buoyancy landing string system debuts in GOM

The industry’s only buoyancy landing string system is installed at the ExPert Riser Solutions facility in Port Fourchon, La.

ExPert Landing String Solutions of Madisonville, La., is awaiting results of the first application of the industry’s only modular buoyancy system, engineered to safely land the long strings of heavy-walled casing required in most ultra-deepwater Gulf of Mexico wells.

While running casing, the patented floatation module is placed inside the riser on the landing string, thereby “reducing its weight and the hookload to a manageable level,” says General Manager Chris von Eberstein. Compounding the HSE benefits, he said, has the capacity to, in most cases, eliminate liner tie-backs that can cost upwards of $20 million to $25 million per deepwater well.

Noting longer casing strings can exceed the safe working loads of even hoisting systems of the latest generation rigs, Eberstein said, “This design can expand the operating range of third-, fourth- and fifth-generation rigs to step into field depths where previously only ultra-deepwater rigs could operate.” ExPert Landing String Solutions is a division of ExPert Riser Solutions of Port Fourchon. 

About the Authors

Jim Redden

Contributing Editor

Jim Redden is a Houston-based consultant and a journalism graduate of Marshall University, has more than 40 years of experience as a writer, editor and corporate communicator, primarily on the upstream oil and gas industry.