£1.2 million investment extends Expro’s centre of subsea excellence
A £1.2 million redesign and refurbishment of Expro’s Aberdeen Churchill facility has created a world-class subsea base to support the company’s commitment to deliver operational excellence to its customers.
Applying ‘Lean’ manufacturing principles, the project has seen major changes to the layout of the workshop at the company’s premises in Dyce, Aberdeen, all with the aim of improving efficiency and focusing on quality delivery to its customers worldwide.
‘Lean’ is a globally-recognised production process that helps companies operate without waste, increasing efficiency.
The Churchill ‘Lean’ study was held to prepare the facility for an upturn in the subsea market, especially with deepwater electro-hydraulic deepwater safety systems. Work has included additional capacity for the assembly of these safety systems as well as a new clean room, training room and hyperbaric cell which simulates subsea conditions during testing.
Production targets have been exceeded by 50 per cent since the project took place, without compromising on safety or service quality.
The Churchill workshop team build and maintain Expro’s market-leading subsea landing string technologies, which are subsea safety systems used by oil and gas operators to deliver critical well control functions in challenging oilfield production conditions.
Expro has extensive expertise and experience in subsea completion and intervention operations, with this technology being increasingly in demand in deepwater regions such as the Gulf of Mexico and offshore West Africa. The team has just completed and delivered electro-hydraulic landing strings for the Jubilee project in Ghana and are in the process of building landing strings for Block 31 project in Angola.
Andy Hodgson, Churchill subsea base manager, said: “The improvements to the Churchill base improve efficiency of our operations and allow our teams to focus on quality delivery to our customers. Due to the high demand of operational equipment going through Churchill, we have invested in improving efficiency, through-put and waiting times and, at the same time, created a building to be proud of, further demonstrating Expro’s commitment to delivering on our Excellence in Operations objectives.”
