Drilling advances

The sultry Louisiana coast, with its shrimp boats, gumbo and innumerable oilfield insignias, is about the last place you would expect icebreakers to be part of the conversational mix. Yet, later this month, another chapter will be added to the ever-growing anthology that is southern Louisiana’s rich marine heritage when Shell Exploration and Production takes possession of a vessel critical to its long-planned Arctic drilling campaign.

On March 24, Galiano, La.-based marine transportation giant Edison Chouest Offshore will deliver the newbuild M/V Aiviq icebreaker to Shell, which will use the vessel to support its Beaufort Sea exploratory drilling program, set to begin off Alaska during the summer of 2012. Once turned over to Shell, the $200-million, 360-ft Aiviq will officially go into the archives as the largest vessel ever constructed by Chouest and one of the most advanced non-military icebreakers in use today.

The icebreaker’s hull was fabricated at the company’s North American Shipbuilding yard in Larose, La. and from there, was moved to the Chouest LaShip facility in Houma, La. for construction of the bridge and final assembly. The Aiviq was designed and built to the International Maritime Organization’s Polar Code 3 and the American Bureau of Shipping’s A3 capabilities. The vessel is rated for operation in temperatures below a minimum of -40°F and capable of cutting through at least 3 ft of ice and nearly 8 in. of snow at a speed of 5 knots. While the Aiviq was designed specifically for ultra-harsh weather conditions, it also can work in Alaska year-round. Its builders say the icebreaker can accommodate a crew of 65 with quarters that closely resemble those on a luxury cruise ship.

What may surprise some is that the Aiviq does not represent an entirely new chapter in the shipbuilding annals of either Louisiana or Chouest. In 2007, the company built the 300-ft Nanuq ice-class vessel, also for Shell, which followed the design and construction of two icebreakers for the National Science Foundation. The Nanuq is slated to support the operator’s Chukchi Sea drilling program, scheduled to begin in concert with the Beaufort campaign. Shell spokesman Curtis Smith described the Aiviq as a “larger and more advanced” version of Nanuq.

Shell believes it finally is on target to launch its oft-delayed tandem exploratory drilling programs in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas during the 2012-2013 summer open water seasons. “I’d say that we’re beyond cautiously optimistic and intend to begin drilling this year,” Smith told World Oil last month.

Last December, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management conditionally approved a revised drilling schedule that would allow Shell to drill as many as six wells over two years in the Chukchi and four over a like period in the Beaufort. The Noble Discoverer drillship will be used in the Chukchi exploratory program, while the Kulluk conical arctic drilling rig will operate in the Beaufort.

Shell’s planned commencement of well construction activities in the Alaskan Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) has been a long time coming, and for a while, appeared to be in serious jeopardy. Like the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, any activity planned for Alaskan waters under U.S. jurisdiction came to a screeching halt with the U.S.-enacted 2010 OCS drilling moratorium. With the moratorium lifted and most permits in place, the exploration program that Shell has long envisioned is now closer to getting underway.

Smith said the Aiviq will first sail to Seattle, Wash., and from there will tow the Kulluk to its first Beaufort Sea drilling location in mid-July. The Aiviq will work primarily as an anchor-handler, but since it also was designed to recover up to 10,000 bbl of spilled crude, the new vessel is required to remain on standby as a contingency, should any incident occur. Chouest pointed out that the Aiviq’s little sister, Nanuq was designed with oil spill-response capabilities well before the 2010 Macondo spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

To address the concerns of North Slope residents, who have expressed fears that the noise will disturb whales and other marine life, Smith said earlier that the Aiviq was designed with the habits of marine animals in mind. “We’re being as proactive as possible in an effort to reduce our overall sound footprint,” he said. Appropriately, Aiviq means walrus in the language of the Inupiaq and was named by a 12-year-old girl in Nuiqsut, Alaska, last year, who won a Shell-sponsored contest.

The vessel was designed with extra insulation, hybrid generators and other noise-reduction equipment to ensure it operates as quietly as possible. In addition, the Aiviq, which was built to 2016 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 4 air emission standards, was fabricated with double hulls and engineered with other redundancies, such as dual oil-water separators.

Shell also plans to go beyond the governmental caveats it had to meet before the path was cleared for its Alaskan drilling program. The operator, for instance, has said that even non-toxic drill cuttings that otherwise would be legally permissible for on-site discharge in the Beaufort will be shipped to shore for disposal at approved sites.

Meanwhile, for the folks of southern Louisiana, construction of the Aiviq provided a much needed pick-up for workers in and around Port Fourchon, La. who were struggling in the wake of the offshore drilling moratorium. Chouest said more than 600 Louisianans were employed during the project and Shell estimates another 100 employees will be required to operate the Aiviq, once it arrives in Alaska.

“The storyline here is that this is an American-made vessel that will work in U.S. waters,” Smith said.