Cube founder Andrew Mahaffy thanked Woodside for allowing his company to compete on ideas rather than the bottom line during a recent tender when accepting the Innovation and Technology award at Subsea Energy Australia's event last month.

 

However, Mahaffy revealed to Energy News that he believed his company had a stronger entry for the Collaboration award, which was won by Wood Group's Subsea Equipment Australian Reliability joint industry project.

 

Earlier this year Cube designed and manufactured more than $1 million worth of subsea anode skids for Fugro TSM - 24 of them - for the mooring pile spread on Woodside's Greater Western Flank Phase 2.

 

Cube engaged Corrosion Control Engineering (CCE), bought anodes from Wilson Taylor in Singapore, engaged DNV GL for on-the-ground document review, Regal Engineering for steel fabrication in Perth, and Boral for the concrete ballast.

 

The project was delivered in March and installed in April.

 

Mahaffy said Cube and Woodside often used CCE as it had a "good reputation", so he engaged the small corrosion engineering firm to verify Cube's design of the cathodic protection.

 

Cube then subcontracted Wilson Taylor to manufacture the anodes in Singapore as he knew Wilson Taylor had executed the contract for the hundreds of tonnes of subsea anodes for Inpex's Ichthys project having worked himself on Ichthys' umbilicals, risers and flowlings scope.

 

Knowing Wilson Taylor had also previously delivered for Woodside, Mahaffy said the firm was the logical choice as it was familiar with Woodside's specifications.  This was only done after investigation into the Australian supply of DNV anodes was exhausted.

 

That took a lot of close monitoring, but it was something Cube had done before, having previously project managed the supply chain for offshore projects.

 

Cube hired DNV to review the documents and run quality control in the anodes in Singapore, so when they arrived in Fremantle, they were already approved.

 

The steel frame was manufactured by Regal with which Cube has a strong partnership.

 

The concreting was by Boral, which doesn't usually produce concrete with the additives required for subsea applications, so Cube liaised with fellow small Perth subsea player Subcon, which was in the running for the SEA Innovation award.

 

 

"I spoke to [Subcon founder] Matthew Allen, who was quite open and free about advice and recommendations on concrete  additives. It's such a large volume of concrete in one lot, you don't want it to shrink or overheat when it cures, so you need additives," Mahaffy told Energy News.

 

"There's a really good alliance between small subsea companies in Perth, with a lot of great cooperation.

 

"We didn't have steel reinforcement in there so, in addition to other additives, we put little high-tech fibres in to stop it shrinking, then Boral made it to our spec.

 

"The collaboration is synonymous with a lot of what we do in project management. We do our own structural/mechanical concepts and design, then project manage sub-suppliers for additional multi-discipline engineering and technical input as required including for the procurement of the anodes, then Cube manufacture the whole product."

 

The GWF2 job was a big one for Cube, whose plan went from basically a hand sketch to delivery in about five months, which is quite fast for today's industry.

 

"They're 11 tonnes each, 24 mooring piles on the sea bed, so when the drilling rig comes in to workover the GWF2 wells, instead of putting its anchors down it will send out its anchor wires to pick up the pre-installed mooring piles on the seabed, and those piles need to be protected from corroding over the next 25 years," Mahaffy explained.

 

"The traditional way would have been to land something on the seabed then connect electrical wires to the thing you're protecting, but that involves ROV and DSV time, so you have a vessel on the surface costing up to $300,000-400,000 a day and you're hanging around for half a shift to connect something up, times 24.  

 

"That's why we developed a system that automatically generated electrical continuity when the anode skid was set down on top of the pile."

 

"Saving half a shift of vessel time per anode skid … is a value proposition. It could be a $2 million advantage because of a thoughtful concept."

 

That's exactly the kind of advantage firms can offer if they're told that they can compete on ideas, Mahaffy said.

 

"Otherwise if clients ask us to engineer their own concept we can do that and charge them an hourly rate but they may not be getting the best outcome," he said.

 

"It's infinitely more rewarding personally as we love to invent things."