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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.
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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.
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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.
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The February 2008 issue closes for advertising
on January 1, 2007. |
For
information contact: |
Ron Higgins, Publisher |
Mailing
Address:
World Oil
PO Box 2608
Houston, TX 77252 USA |
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Street
Address:
World Oil
2 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1020
Houston, Texas 77046 USA |
Phone: (713) 529-4301; Fax: (713) 520-4433 |
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