VolkerTrenchless Solutions (Visser & Smit Hanab) has won the 2018 UKSTT (United Kingdom Society for no dig Trenchless Technology) Awardfor Innovation for its Mongstad horizontal directional drilling (HDD) landfall project.
The Awards recognise industry best practice and cover a range of excellence, including innovation, renovation, environmental performance and application of digital technology.
The project, executed for the Norwegian company Statoil (now Equinor), is a crucial part of the pipeline route where the crude oil pipeline comes ashore into the Mondstad oil refinery from a newly discovered oil field in the North Sea.
The team was tasked with drilling an 800-metre-long, 1.2 metre diameter borehole, in hard rock formation.
Producing 12 million barrels per year into the Mongstad oil refinery, the sub-sea pipeline had to be installed through the rock formation, exiting at 300 metres below sea level.
Using a HDD rig on a project of this scale had never before been attempted. As a result, this was the most complex and innovative project undertaken by VolkerTrenchless Solutions, or any other trenchless drilling organisation to date.
Innovation
Despite several challenges, the project was completed on time and to budget.