A new design concept of Blowout Preventer for decision support

Abstract

The Blowout Preventer (BOP) system is used for controlling blowout risks in drilling operations. The system is implemented to shut down an oil and gas well when the well fluids have entered the wellbore. All BOP systems today are operated with Electro-Hydraulic (E/H) controls, and the record shows high number of failures and malfunctions involving hydraulic components (e.g. leakages). Failures of BOP systems have made significant contributions to non-productive time of drilling rigs. This paper introduces a new concept of electro-mechanically operated BOP, which seems to be a candidate to improve reliability and availability of the BOP. The main interest of this paper is to shed light on the new features of the electrical BOP system versus current art qualitatively. In addition, this contribution proposes a method for the BOP availability analysis which may be used in the decision-making about designing optimal BOP systems.