Overview

The current high prices of oil and gas and the opinion shared by many oil operators that they will remain high in the future will lead to development of oil reserves having a higher technological cost than development activities in the past. For the offshore industry, this expectation of higher prices will translate into new opportunities and result in major growth in deepwater-development activities.

Even if most of the large deepwater fields have already been discovered, at least in the traditional deep offshore zones of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and Angola, many smaller discoveries with reserves ranging from 100 to 300 million bbl have been made and probably will continue to be made in deep and ultradeep water.

Development of these fields presents several technical and economic challenges.
Smaller reservoirs are uneconomical under conventional development schemes.
Uncertainty exists regarding the fluid properties and the extent of reserves because fewer appraisal wells are affordable.
Number of production wells per field is limited.
Tieback distances to existing facilities or to the coast are long.
Obtaining fluid properties is a challenge, and there is a lack of homogeneity with neighboring accumulations.

Development of these small discoveries will be made possible either as satellites to an existing facility, even with very long tiebacks, or as standalone developments by grouping small adjacent fields that sometimes are far apart and have different fluid properties. These development projects will require technologically added value such as innovative field architectures, cost-effective flowline and riser solutions, multiphase pumping, subsea separation (gas/liquid or three-phase), and efficient monitoring.

Concerning the development cost, the portion allocated to drilling, flowlines, risers, and subsea hardware will be higher than in current deepwater developments. In the process of transferring equipment from surface to seabed, operators will need assurance of at least comparable availability of the facility as that currently achieved through a combination of equipment reliability, adequate redundancy, and efficiency of maintenance.

High-Mode-Number Vortex-Induced-Vibration Field Experiments
Chain Failure by Bending on Deepwater Mooring Systems
Operations in 4000 m Water Depth: Prestige Wreck Fuel-Recovery Project

Claude Valenchon, SPE, is Vice President, Technology Development for Saipem S.A. in Paris. In 1981, after 7 years with CG Doris, he joined Bouygues Offshore, which became Saipem S.A. in 2002. Currently, Valenchon is in charge of external technology developments toward clients, aiming at providing solutions, products, or concepts for tenders and design competitions in the area of deepwater-field developments, liquefied natural gas, unconventional resources, and environment. He serves on the JPT Editorial Committee and holds an engineering degree from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris.

Overview

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