Auger: Behind the scenes of a deep-water pioneer

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My name is Henry Rudd and I've been out here for 17 years

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and my job is mentoring,

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training new production operators,

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getting them acclimated with the platform

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and how we do things out here.

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My name's Keith Chaisson

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I've been here on the Auger TLP since 1995.

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I came out for a one month job, supposedly.

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What was amazing me was just the sheer magnitude of the platform.

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This is the Atwell bay, moon pool

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and all you have are the DVA wells, which means direct vertical access.

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Drill vertically and then you have sub-sea wells

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and the sub-sea wells drill away from the platform.

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We needed weight management

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because we'd put in so much heart with the builders

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so we removed and demoed out

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and we put in a bigger, more improved heliport

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so that we could fly S92's

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give us more field deep capability and it's for evacuation

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and crew changes.

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So, it's a 'win win' situation

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Got rid of some additional weight, some additional real estate

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and put in a larger heliport,

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in order to be able to move people in and out more efficiently.

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So, all good stuff, new and improved.

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Once they find oil, there's still a lot of work that has to be done

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because, okay, if it is a well,

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and once they rack the well and the well bay

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you have construction coming in to stack the well,

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put on the well head

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and then we have floor-line piping we have to run

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and then you go through procedure operations

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we have to unload the well,

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So there's still a lot of work in progress

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to open that well, to produce the first oil.

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Pretty amazing? Looking over here at the rig,

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our Cardamom location.

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It's kind of unimaginable that our drill rig, here on this platform

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drilled that hole.

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This is record breaking, it's the first TLP for Shell

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and the old girl has set some records

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and as far as I'm concerned, undeniably,

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she's a crown jewel in Shell's portfolio in the Gulf of Mexico.

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We're real proud of working here

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and Cardamom prospect new life

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able to bring the platform back out to maximum capacity.

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`Bright, bright future for the first TLP in the Gulf of Mexico