Marine Contractor Services, Inc.

Hunting Mcs, Inc.

John W Brandon

Richard Bryan Lee

Larry R Kovar

Charles F Fahrmeier

A millout whipstock has a cylindrical body with a stabbing nose at the bottom and a deflection shoe at the top. A drill string extending through the deflection shoe is connected to a pressure housing keyed in a torque key housing in the body. A piston, mounted in a piston housing secured in the body beneath the pressure housing, has an upper portion extending through the pressure housing and is pinned in a raised position by shear pins. A slip expander at the bottom of the piston engages slips supported adjacent openings in the side wall of the body. A fluid path extending through the drill string, pressure housing, piston housing, and piston, is closed off by a rupture disk. The body is lowered by the drill string onto a cement plug in the casing. The slips are set by applying fluid pressure in the drill string to shear the shear pins and force the piston and expander downward wedging the slips outward to grip the casing. The body is cemented in the casing by pumping cement down the drill string which bursts the rupture disk and flows to the exterior of the piston and through the bottom of the body filling the space around the stabbing nose and the interior of the body surrounding the expander assembly and lower portion of the piston. The drill string is removed and a window is cut through the side of the casing by a mill.

Millout whipstock apparatus and method

A leveling apparatus is lowered onto a structure, such as a subsea template, having one or more latching receptacles secured thereon and through which a pile has been driven into the ocean floor. The apparatus engages the open end of the pile and releasably latches onto the receptacle. The apparatus has a lift frame at its upper end, a landing ring below the lift frame, a cylinder frame below the landing ring, and a latch frame below the cylinder frame. The lift frame is connected to the latch frame by vertical stabilizer columns secured to the lift frame and connected at their lower ends to latches in the latch frame. The landing ring is slidably mounted on the stabilizer columns and hydraulic lift cylinders secured to the cylinder frame have their rod ends secured to the housing of the latch frame. When the apparatus is suspended by rigging, the landing ring and lift frame are spaced vertically apart and after the landing ring has been engaged on the pile, the rigging goes slack, and the upper lift frame moves vertically downward. The hydraulic cylinders are extended until the latches travel past a load shoulder in the receptacle and are then retracted to positively lock the latches on the receptacle load shoulder. Continued retraction raises the receptacle and connected structure to a desired position so the structure may be secured to the pile. The apparatus is removed by extending the cylinder rods to raise the lift frame and release the latches or by tugging on the lift frame with the rigging.

Apparatus for leveling subsea structures

Gripper devices are installed in the spudwells of a platform or causeway section and manually operated to grip the pile to suspend the platform or causeway section in a level position on the piles. Each gripper device has a cylindrical bowl with a flat mounting flange at the bottom end. The bowl has large central bore extending from the top end and terminating in a smaller bore at the bottom end defining a shoulder therebetween. A series of circumferentially spaced actuator segments having a vertical outer wall and a radial flange at the top end are mounted within the bowl by bolts for vertical movement relative to the bowl. The actuator segments have a downwardly and radially outwardly tapered interior wedging surface with a T-shaped slot extending along the wedging surface. A series of slip segments have a toothed interior surface for gripping the pile and a tapered exterior wedging surface corresponding to the wedging surface of the actuator segments. A headed guide button secured to the slip rides in the T-shaped slot to guide the slips along the wedging surfaces. The piles are lowered through the bowl and set into the seabed and the platform or causeway section is leveled horizontal. As the bolts are tightened, the actuator segments move vertically downwardly relative to the bowl and the wedging surfaces engage to wedge the slips radially inward to firmly engage and grip the exterior surface of the pile.

Growing community of inventors

Kingwood, TX, United States of America

John W Brandon