Thursday 24 May 2012

Maintaining a Wellhead and the Wellhead Components


Setting up a contract with a wellhead maintenance firm can really help reduce your costs, increase productivity and increase safety levels. A thorough program of maintenance will help prolong the life of your wellhead or the wellhead components substantially. This can result in major savings for your business. 

Replacing wellhead components due to wear and tear is expensive, and it can often be massively delayed by a system of proper care and attention provided by a good maintenance contract. Taking out such a contract will help save money but it will also bring peace of mind that everything is working as it should be, and that there are no disasters waiting to happen with a component that is imminently about to fail or become dangerous in some way. Your contract will most likely include analysis during an inspection of the wellhead, conducted by highly skilled experts in the field. 

Specific tests will be run to test the integrity and functionality of all the wellhead components to check if they are functioning to capacity. The results of these tests will be analysed and the relevant action taken. This could be a repair of a particular wellhead component, or a recommendation for replacement if a component is thought to be beyond repair or potentially dangerous. Other routine maintenance is also likely to be carried out by your contractors such as lubricating the wellhead components as a matter of course.

Your contractors will conduct this process of testing and repair on a regular basis. This should go a long way towards reducing the need for repairs and should help reduce downtime for the well as a whole due to incidents with the wellhead. Every effort will be made by your contractors to maintain your components with preventative maintenance techniques to minimise the impact of the job on the wellhead componentry so as to prolong their life and keep them working safely for much longer.

When repairs are deemed necessary, your contractors will be qualified to fix the problems with the components, on site if possible, but if not they will take the components to their own facilities for a more detailed inspection and thorough repair. All components will then be thoroughly tested and checked before they are returned to the wellhead.

Money can be saved by using refurbished wellhead components, and your contractors may well recommend this option to you. Components can often outlive the need for them at the well and so they can be refurbished and reused on another wellhead. Your contractors are likely to have a collection of spare parts salvaged from broken components that they may be able to use to repair your components at a fraction of the cost of buying the parts form new, or of buying a whole new wellhead component.

 A wellhead maintenance contract is a wise investment as it brings you both peace of mind regarding the safety of your well, and it will save you money in the long term too.


Wednesday 23 May 2012

Wellhead Components and Pipeline Planning


The wellhead components are a vital part of the safe running of the wellhead. Carefully choosing wellhead components will help maintain the structure and pressure of the wellhead and keep it running smoothly for many years, for the most part, without a great need for maintenance or repair. 

A wellhead will have many different uses during its lifetime. That is why the wellhead consists of different components, so the correct components can be selected and installed for each particular job the wellhead is undertaking at any one time. The wellhead could be used to hold casings in place, or equally to deliver cement or other substances to the well. 



Some wellhead components can be used across a variety of jobs, while others are very specialist and have been developed to perform a very specific task. The design and manufacture of wellhead components is very intensive. The design of the components, the materials used and the manufacturing process have all been fine tuned over many years, by the few companies that specialise in this type of production. 

Drilling for oil or gas comes with a lot of risks associated, so the production of every aspect of the wellhead components is highly regulated and the parts are subjected to a barrage of tests and a whole host of safety checks. Pipeline planning always includes a large emphasis on the wellhead. Choosing the right components for the job and ensuring they are manufactured to a consistently high standard to fully suit the purpose of the job at hand.

When it comes to wellhead components there is no room for error. A mistake in the production or fitting of the wellhead components could put lives at risk and could cause a huge environmental problem. No drilling company wants the responsibility of that on their shoulders, nor do they want to foot the bill for putting things right after something has gone wrong. With wellhead components it's important to get it right first time. That is why most oil and gas drilling companies build up a good working relationship with their chosen manufacturer and supplier of their wellhead components over many years. Wellhead components are understandably expensive to produce. This is due to several factors. Firstly the size. Wellhead components mostly need to be very large, and they're often very heavy making transportation a little problematic. They also need to be precision engineered out of the very best materials. Often made from steel, wellhead components cannot afford to be flawed in any way. A lot of care is put into the manufacture of the components and a lot of time and effort is also put into testing and checking each component to make sure it is 100% perfect and ready to be installed in the wellhead.For more information on wellhead components click here.