PREVIEW OF OTC 2008

Waves of Change is this year’s theme for the 2008 Offshore Technology Conference, held May 5th through 8th in Houston. The theme “reflects the industry’s transition as project scopes and parameters are stretched to fulfill ever-increasing demand.” World Oil explores what the 2008 show will feature and asks the OTC management the perennial question: What are you doing to improve the conference? In addition, we will feature the winners of OTC’s Spotlight on Technology Awards and their technology.

 SPECIAL REPORT: TECHNOLOGY FROM EUROPE

As part of our OTC issue, this special section is printed as a supplement, as well as bound into the magazine. It offers the latest offshore technology innovations from the main European players: United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Netherlands, France and Italy. Interviews with government and industry officials from these regions will discuss legal, tax and technology developments that could affect operators in their respective areas. A selection of novel technology developments and applications will also be presented, including, but not limited to:

France-All metal PCPs. Difficult-to-extract unconventional reserves, such as heavy oil, extra heavy oil and bitumen, requires special equipment. PCM in France shows how its all-metal progressing cavity pumps work in Canada’s steam-assisted gravity drainage and cyclic steam thermal recovery operations.

Norway-Compact separation of crude oil. Aibel incorporates electrostatic coalescers into separators. The current technology enables one-stage separation of oil and water, as with a one-stage separator using LOWACC (Low Water Content Coalescer). A prototype LOWACC has been tested on several different real crude oils ranging from 17 to 29°API. Produced water after separation contained 2−200 ppm oil.

Denmark-Latest well-tractor applications. Servicing deviated wells is always a challenge and many high-angle wells require specialized tools to repair or recondition downhole equipment. Welltec’s versatility tractor systems solve several tough well problems, including. An example is presented where 361°F was recorded. In another well, the tractor conveyed the temperature probe thorough temperatures of 388°F. Another development is the newest Well Cleaner 218 LE (for Liquid Environment).

UK-High-frequency induction (HFI) welding was used to create line pipe to replace 5.25 km of badly corroded pipe in Apache’s Forties Field in the North Sea. Corus Tubes completed the job using HFI method in an extremely tight lead-time of nine weeks to meet a lay vessel window of opportunity. HFI benefits include shorter procurement, superior ovality and wall thickness tolerance, and reduced costs to that of seamless linepipe. Final tie-in will be in April 2008 coinciding with a planned field shutdown.

UK-Conductor supported platform. The Sea Swift concept is a field-proven technology for reducing costs in shallow water field developments. With many applications, theses platforms combine the advantages of a platform with the rig-run benefit of a subsea development, which allows lower capital and installation/intervention costs. This article describes its first deployment.

UK-Caledus Ltd’s Slimwell system is a close-clearance flush-jointed liner hanger that can deliver a larger pipe at the reservoir than conventional hangers, thus avoiding all the risk normally associated with swab, surge and high ECD. Increased pipe size, especially if an additional casing seat is required during drilling, can deliver performance advantages, and even make an undrillable well drillable.

UK-Furmanite has made a chocking system that prevents wear on pipes and risers. The system recently saw the first subsea application. Traditional options such as wooden wedges, rubber or plastic blocks can cause further problems by being too hard or holding the conductor too rigidly. The chocking system comprises PVC-proofed nylon chocking slips filled with a polyurethane resin. The nylon is ultrasonically welded for liquid tightness. The resin, once set, forms a resilient elastomer that is resistant to attack from most hydrocarbon liquids and gases, seawater and UV light.

 DRILLING TECHNOLOGY

ADR resistivity tool. On a recent well in the Oseberg area drilled for StatoilHydro, Halliburton’s new azimuthal deep resistivity (ADR) sensor was used to precisely place a long horizontal section through the reservoir while avoiding an overlying unstable formation. The sensor is comprised of a single collar with six transmitters and three tilted receivers. This arrangement allows the tool to categorize resistivity data by direction as it rotates, forming a 3D picture of the near-wellbore region at different depths of investigation.

Small bore wells using rotary steerable drilling. In Alpine Field on the Western North Slope, Alaska, ConocoPhillips and partner Anadarko continue to extend the reach of the small bore well design using rotary steerable drilling assemblies. Authors from ConocoPhillips and Halliburton describe the optimizations in RSS, PDC design, T&D, fluids, hydraulics and new logging tools used to drill high departure wells, including a recent 25,000 ft MD well which used only three hole sizes.

Deepwater tiebacks. BP-operated King and King West are tied back to the Marlin TLP in the GOM in water depths up to 5,400 ft. When the topsides separator started showing water production, rigorous well testing was required that deferred production. The BP author shows how the project was expanded and planned to meet multiple objectives.

 INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

The Law of the Sea. There has been vigorous debate about whether the US Senate should ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The treaty has a wide-range of supporters in the US. These reportedly include elements within the Pentagon, while a primary objection of opponents is that the treaty would establish a precedent by authorizing the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority to collect taxes. Paul Kelly, Consultant, and World Oil Senior Editorial Advisor, discusses why there is a need to govern the world’s ungoverned spaces: the deep and vast oceans. “This is a critical opportunity which must not be missed, especially from the viewpoint of future potential oil and natural gas supply in America, and globally.”

The Ultimate Energy Challenge: Closing Professional and Intercultural Communication Gaps can boost the Effectiveness of Oil & Gas Business. NOCs and IOCs have been jointly caring global supply and demand for over a century. Increasingly, IOCs struggle for access to reserves, controlled by NOCs. Negotiations and relation management involve mutual stakes higher than ever before. This situation implicates that even the smallest flaw in effective communication between stakeholders (professionals, companies and governments) may result in an adverse impact on the outcome of the business cooperation-causing loss of business value. This is often neglected by management in our industry and is the subject discussed by two Delft professors.

 ADVANCES IN GEOPHYSICS

Deepwater seep-hunting. Relatively inexpensive deepwater seep-hunting has become a method for hydrocarbon exploration over the past several years. Seep identification has also become necessary for pre-drilling activities due to regulations protecting chemosynthetic communities, and is used to identify potential drilling hazards like hardgrounds and hydrates. Authors from AOA Geophysics and Black Gold Energy discuss methods and advantages of seep-hunting in this article.

Paleobiology as a driver in E&P activities. Two examples of enhanced exploration potential from the Dutch Upper Jurassic offshore Netherlands illustrate the point that his often overlooked science can be an essential tool for the explorationist. Authors from NTO NITG discuss biostratigraphic techniques to identify stratigraphic sequences of the Upper Jurassic, a complicated non-marine to shallow marine complex. Authors use newly identified sequences to explain, in two examples, the existence of only one economic oil field and the misplacement of exploration wells, showing the importance of paleo-environmental understanding for future exploration potential.

Mapping hydrocarbon micro-seepage using hyperspectral remote sensing. Using NASA’s Hyperion hyperspectral imaging sensors, this project developed spectral and geochemical ground truthing techniques to identify and map alterations caused by hydrocarbon microseepages and to determine their relationships to the underlying geology in the Patrick Draw area of Southwest Wyoming, the Garza oilfield in Texas, and Lisbon valley in Utah. The result is the successful identification of anomalous micro-seepage zones, which were confirmed using XRD, ICP, spectroscopy and carbon isotope techniques.

 PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Artificial lift Part 1. From their base at Texas Tech University, our long-standing contributors, Herald Winkler and Jim Lea, together with consultant Robert Snyder, will compile the first half of this highly popular, annual World Oil feature. Once again, they will assemble an interesting array--this time comprising more than a dozen new developments in artificial lift. Ample photos and diagrams accompany the featured items.

Gas lift optimization using an evolutionary algorithm. Evolutionary algorithms are a class of stochastic optimization algorithms that are suitable for complex problems that have so far been considered intractable. This article reports the application to identify optimal gas injection volumes for oil extraction subject to constraints on gas availability, oil extraction targets and well characteristics. Results show significant improvement over existing practices for two standard benchmarks of six-well (35 bpd improvement) and a 56-well (243 bpd improvement).

Shuttle tankers vs. pipelines in the GOM ultra-deepwater frontier. This article is a synopsis of a Wood Mackenzie report that compares the costs of shuttle tanker use to new and existing pipelines, including the effects of tariffs. The first FPSO development is moving forward in the US Gulf of Mexico at Petrobras’ Cascade and Chinook fields in the promising Lower Tertiary play. Pipeline costs rise disproportionately as water depths increase, while shuttle tanker costs are insensitive to water depth and - to a certain extent-to distance. The analysis involves the transportation options and costs of a hypothetical oil discovery in ultra-deepwater.

 PRODUCED WATER REPORT

New produced water treatment technology. Redwine Resources, a producer in the southern Atlantic Rim coalbed methane trend, has entered into a Joint Venture with Aqua EWP to develop and field a new produced water treatment technology using capacitance de-ionization, for both its own use and for marketing to industry. The technology uses a mechanism for ion removal that is very similar to a hybrid combination of capacitance de-ionization and electrical de-ionization, using a hybrid electrode comprised of activated carbon, nano materials and a semipermeable coating. Case Studies will be presented along with data from previous tests of the equipment.