AS SEEN IN

MAY 2013

Collaborative efforts turn technical

challenges into successes
Tight formations and HP/HT are just two of the many challenges that ultra-deepwater
producers will face in the future that will require collaboration to solve.

Jennifer Presley, Senior Editor, Production

n the days of old, people believed mischievous spirits

were up to no good when bad things occurred. Over
time, with the assistance of math, science, and a sizeable
dose of creativity, those beliefs have gradually changed.
Columbus put to bed the one-time popular belief that
the earth was flat, just like Neil Armstrongs little stroll
confirmed that the moon was not made of green cheese.
Building upon the foundations these early collaborative efforts set and dictated by the need to think outside
the box, it was made possible for humans to plumb the
ocean floors of the ultra-deep waters offshore to facilitate the recovery of hydrocarbons from deeply buried
reservoirs. Intricate highways of pipelines and production modules lie miles below the surface to safely transport its passengers to shore. And while the technical
challenges in accomplishing such feats are many, operators have found that technology can help turn these
challenges into successes.

tor for FMC Technologies, the distance away from any

delivery plane, vertically or horizontally and vertically is
growing more important.
It is an interesting problem in that oil companies are
going to deeper reservoirs, which are higher pressures,
but by the time they get [the reservoir fluids] to the
seafloor, the fluids dont have enough energy to go the
remaining distance on their own to the delivery point.
So it is a weird paradigm.
It doesnt matter how much pressure youve got on
the inside. If it has to go a long distance, the pressure
might not be anywhere near enough to get fluids flowing at a decent rate, he said. So thats why you might
need pumps or compressors or separators that change
the density of the fluid to make it easier so that the pressure drop isnt as great to get from Point A to Point B.

Enter the genies

Skeels believes that overcoming distance and low flow
pressures is probably the biggest challenge facing off-

Getting down
to the basics
The roots of many offshore
technical challenges can be
traced back to two conditions:
pressure and water depth. The
greater distances from shore
that exploration has opened
up to production possibilities
also play a role.
According to Brian Skeels,
emerging technologies direc-

As operators begin producing in

deeper and deeper waters, the
greater distances from seafloor and
seashore increase the level of difficulty in recovering and transporting
oil and gas to market.

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HART ENERGY | 1616 S. VOSS, STE. 1000, HOUSTON, TX 77057 USA | +1 713 260 6400 | FAX +1 713 840 8585

ULTRA-DEEPWATER
PRODUCTION

shore operators. But he also noted that extreme water

fighting each other, he said. Sometimes the way you
depths present an equally challenging obstacle.
would do things normally on land is different than what
Some of the technologies that attempt to make it
you would do in a pressurized environment. Its a differeasier for fluids to flow pumping, compression, or
ent environment, so the equipment needs to be
separation and the components associated with these
redesigned to adapt to that environment.
technologies, like pressure vessels or tanks, have seals
New perspectives, collaborative effort are key
that work really great from the inside out but not from
In adapting to the subsea, accessibility to perform mainthe outside in, he said. As we get into these very deep
tenance and repair is a more complex design considerawaters, the technologies that would help add energy to
tion. Subsea components are more robust and require
the flowstream could be thwarted by whats going on by
servicing in ways that are different from those compothe extreme water depth.
nents found on a platform. The use of ROVs and manipI like to differentiate between the two by calling one
ulators for the oil industry has helped ease the process
the red genie and the other the blue genie, he said.
of routine maintenance and repair procedures on comThe red genie is in the bottle and is trying to get out
ponents found in ultra-deep water.
and cause havoc, while the blue genie is the ocean tryAccording to Skeels, working with Schilling Robotics
ing to get into the bottle and cause an equal amount of
helps bring a different perspective to the drawing board.
havoc. The trick is in knowing how to keep them at bay
Its one thing to come up
in the process.
with these neat ideas for new
A few of the solutions
components thatll go on the
necessary to keep these
seafloor, he said. Its quite
two competing forces in
another to consider how to
check have been found
install it, how to maintain
through the reimagining
it, and how, in these great
of current technologies
depths and long distances,
for use in smaller and
to be able to do that. An
harsher environments.
understanding of the ROV
For example, weve been
side of things is a big help.
looking at separator techIt gives FMC Technologies
nologies that do not need
another perspective.
giant separator tanks, said
He added that he sees the
Skeels. These technologies
need for more and more
use much smaller pipes,
collaborative efforts to
and the inside of the pipe
tackle future challenges,
can be designed in such a
specifically HP/HT chalway that the oil and gas can
lenges that ultra-deep water
be separated out in a much
The increasing complexity of the technical challenges
will present.
smaller environment than
facing ultra-deepwater operators will require
Thats one big area that
what is traditionally done.
more industry collaboration to find solutions.
everybody is working. There
This technology was initially
are some things that we have
done to reduce the footprint
to understand fundamentally in materials, like seals.
size on platforms.
Materials behave differently at different temperatures.
FMC Technologies saw this as an opportunity to take
Also, some of this oil and gas is coming out of various
this similar technology and marinize it, or adapt it for
tight formations, almost as tight as what you see for
use underwater, said Skeels. Plus, its smaller size
shales. So there are a lot of interesting problems with
means it is more resistant to the blue genie trying to
getting this new generation of hydrocarbons out of the
crush it.
ground its corrosiveness and its makeup, he said.
And the deeper one goes, the more critical the
Because things are becoming so technically complex at
change is in engineering differences between platform
those kinds of depths, it really relies on a collaborative
and subsea production equipment.
effort as there are fewer simple answers to the problems
Thats what I mean by marinization and subsea. Its
down there.
trying to understand that there are two environments
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HART ENERGY | 1616 S. VOSS, STE. 1000, HOUSTON, TX 77057 USA | +1 713 260 6400 | FAX +1 713 840 8585