Announcing the winners of Best BSc Project 2023

This year’s winners have impressed the jury with their innovation, high relevance and solid plans for implementation at the upcoming Yggdrasil-field. These factors were the primary reasons behind their well-deserved victory.

We congratulate Anita Bjørkedal, Trym Hjortland and Thea H. Nordøen, winners of the best BSc project 2023.

The title of their impressive project was “Design Development of a Tubing Hanger Guide for Vertical Subsea System” which received the award at our Ocean Young event held at HVL in Bergen yesterday.

Developed a new tool for Aker Solutions

The project team developed a new tubing hanger guide (THG) to replace existing dead well intervention guide sleeve. The students manage to reduce the weight and the length of the unit by respectively 87% and 82%.

This makes it possible to store the unit in preparedness offshore, saving downtime associated with transportation of the unit from shore.

The tubing hanger guide has been manufactured by Aker Solutions and is planned to be tested with the aim to use it at the upcoming Yggdrasil field, which plans starting the production in 2027.

Cecilie Tefre, Project Engineer at Aker Solutions, shared her insights on the project:

– We have successfully 3D printed parts of the design, specifically the upper portion. Once the remaining components are in place, the assembly will undergo Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) at Ågotnes. Subsequently, our plan is to deploy it as a contingency tool at Yggdrasil, among other potential applications. For instance, if the need arises to descend into the well and fracture a glass plug, we aim to protect the mechanical components within the hanger by utilizing such a guide.

– Furthermore, Tefre added, –We have already developed a Tubing Hanger Guide for horizontal systems, which is now ready for use in the KEG project for AkerBP. This newly designed guide will seamlessly complement the vertical Tubing Hangers we have in our inventory.

Impressive level

– It is great to see the high level of the different student projects nominated, says Jon Hellevang R&D Manager in GCE Ocean Technology and head of the jury.

– We evaluated many good candidates, but it was especially the level of innovation and solid plans to implement the solution, where the winners stood out, says Hellevang.

The key criteria for the jury were:

• Relevance and value for the industry partners. Including plans to take forward/implement the results.
• Potential for the the industry as a whole, beyond the partner the assignment is written for.
• Innovation, degree of novelty and possibility to use the results in different industries.

Anita, Trym and Thea are currently working for Aker Solutions, Framo and OneSubsea respectively.

We wish them the best of luck with their careers.