In 2018, a CAN-ductor installation on Woodside Energy’s Ferrand-1 deepwater exploration well, in the Carnarvon Basin offshore Western Australia, went on to set a world depth record. The Conductor Anchor Node suction pile with integrated conductor (CAN-ductor) was installed in a water depth of 1,492m — deeper than any CAN-ductor deployment before it — and was later recovered intact for reuse, a first for the Australasian region.
The project was delivered by a venture between Norwegian technology developer Neodrill AS and Australian offshore installation contractor ICON Engineering, using a Siem Offshore Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessel for both the installation and the recovery.
Why the Ferrand-1 well needed a different approach
Ferrand-1 was a high pressure, high temperature well being drilled into relatively weak seabed soil — conditions that make a traditional surface conductor and wellhead installation both slow and higher-risk. Running and cementing numerous joints of heavy conductor from the rig adds days to the drilling program and repeated heavy-lift operations, each one an HSE exposure that has to be managed.
The CAN-ductor was developed specifically to remove that exposure. It replaces the traditional well conductor casing with a single pre-fabricated unit, engineered onshore and installed from a vessel ahead of the rig’s arrival.
How the CAN-ductor installation and recovery were carried out
The 16m-high, 6m-diameter CAN-ductor was pre-installed in February 2018, well ahead of the semi-submersible drilling rig’s arrival that April. Because the foundation was already in place and verified before the rig mobilised, drilling could begin without the schedule and safety cost of running conductor from the rig deck.
Once drilling was complete, the CAN-ductor was successfully retrieved in August 2018 using the same AHTS spread — recovering a foundation from 1,492m of water without rig involvement, and without losing the asset to abandonment. That recovery is what made the project the world’s deepest CAN-ductor installation and recovery on record at the time, and the first successful CAN-ductor recovery in Australasian waters.
Woodside Energy’s video on its Punch and Go exploration strategy, using the Conductor Anchor Node (CAN)
What the recovered CAN-ductor made possible
Because the CAN-ductor came back intact, it was available for reuse on either an exploration or a development well, instead of being written off after a single campaign. For production well applications, the same foundation can support components of the subsea production system (SPS) — items that would otherwise need their own separate foundations and installation campaigns. Mounting SPS components onto the CAN-ductor in advance can materially shorten the path to first production.
The technology also opens up highly deviated well designs for shallow reservoirs, giving operators a way to reach targets that would otherwise need a different rig or well architecture altogether.
ICON’s video of the fabrication, installation and recovery of the Ferrand-1 well
A capability ICON continues to build on
The Ferrand-1 CAN-ductor installation sits alongside a track record ICON has built across minimal facilities and rig-installed wellhead platforms — including more offshore platforms installed with jackup drilling rigs than any other company worldwide, and pioneering work on Minnowpod, Monopod, and Annex wellhead platform designs. It’s the same combination of structural, mechanical, and installation engineering that ICON applies across wellhead platform and substructure and foundation engineering work more broadly.
Further technical detail on the CAN-ductor technology itself, including how the suction anchor and integrated conductor are engineered, is available on Neodrill’s CAN-ductor technology page. ICON’s own project sheet for Ferrand-1, with further technical detail on this installation, is available on the Ferrand CAN-ductor project page.
Further information for editors
- ICON has installed more offshore platforms with jackup drilling rigs than any other company worldwide, and is expert in minimal facilities installation techniques such as Minnowpods, Monopods and Annex wellhead platforms.
- ICON’s work won a British Government engineering award for the innovative North Sea design and installation method of Shell’s Skiff oilfield, and installed the first fixed wellhead platform in the Timor Sea.
- ICON has carried out the deepest and lowest-cost deployment of flexible flowlines from a semi-submersible drilling rig in Australia, and has pioneered mini-floatover technology for installing small topsides up to 1,200 tonnes.
- ICON is a world leader in the supply of conductor tensioning systems for jackup drilling rigs, from the Gippsland Basin to the Gulf of Mexico, and is renowned for completing difficult rig upgrades outside shipyards in remote offshore locations.
- ICON’s equipment division sells and rents equipment internationally, with a focus on niche equipment for construction and drilling operations.
- ICON designs and manufactures heave-compensated systems for drilling locked-to-bottom well test operations.
