Total’s Pazflor offshore development—a fully integrated project that spans the entire value chain from exploration to production—won the IPTC Excellence in Project Integration Award. Total beat out two other finalists in the competition: the Sulige gas field development by China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and the Jubilee oil field project offshore Ghana by Tullow Oil.
The award recognizes the project team that has made “significant and unique achievements in managing and directing an integrated oil or gas project from discovery to delivery.” This year, 16 nominations were submitted representing projects in 12 countries. The winning project was announced by Michitaka Ohta, director, project coordination, with INPEX, at a special awards banquet.
Pazflor is a huge deepwater development in Block 17 offshore Angola that came online ahead of schedule in August 2011. Total is operator of the field on behalf of Sonangol, the concessionaire, and its partners Statoil, Esso, and BP. Pazflor has already reached maximum production capacity, which the company said is “testament to the reliability and robustness of the bold technology applied to unlock value from four deepwater reservoirs.” Total believes the project has led to a step-change in the industrial and economic development of Angola as well as in the oil and gas industry’s capability to develop such challenging deepwater resources.
The main challenge of Pazflor was how to economically produce 400 Mbbl of heavy viscous oil from three deep offshore Miocene reservoirs while simultaneously producing 200 Mbbl of lighter oil from a deeper Oligocene reservoir. The project presented hurdles related to flow assurance, the size of the development area (600 km2), and sand control.
Among the key elements and accomplishments of Pazflor to date are:
- Smooth ramp up to maximum production capacity of 220,000 BOPD
- Overcoming the significant health, safety, and environmental challenge because of the multiple fabrication yards involved worldwide and a year-long installation campaign
- Finishing a USD 9 billion project under budget and within 44 months from project sanction to first oil
- Successfully utilizing new and novel technologies
- Managing a huge development with a single integrated project team from geosciences to field operations
The technologies employed during the project are noteworthy. After extensive study, the project team decided to develop the heavy oil via seabed gas/liquid separation and pumping. That included installing three 1,000 metric ton subsea modules, each equipped with a large vertical separation vessel, two hybrid liquid boosting pumps, and a manifold. Liquids are pumped to the FPSO through a flexible riser, while the separated associated gas flows naturally through two other flexible risers. This concept represents a world first in technology application.
The other two finalists also exhibited strong project management and use of technology.
CNPC’s project involved efficient development of the large tight sandstone gas field in Sulige, which was hard to tap because of low formation pressure and low gas abundance. After years of geological study, reservoir stimulation, and surface-gathering technology innovation and integration, and a total investment of
USD 3.5 billion, the field yielded 13.55 Bcm of natural gas in 2011.
Tullow’s Jubilee project was brought online in 2011 at a record pace, and represents the first significant development offshore Ghana. The venture executed a world-class deepwater project in an area with no existing infrastructure in fewer than 3 years.
