Offshore/subsea systems

Best Practices and Lessons Learned From Deepwater Floating Production Unit Project

This paper reviews best practices and learnings from floating-production-unit transportation and installation, hookup, and commissioning and discusses subsea flowlines, export pipelines, and subsea-equipment installations.

Fig. 1—Anchor FPU moored at site.
Fig. 1—Anchor FPU moored at site.
Source: OTC 35303.

The Anchor floating production unit(FPU) is a Gulf of Mexico facility in approximately 5,000 ft of water with a nameplate capacity of 75,000 BOPD and 28 MMscf/D with future expansion capability. The Anchor development plan consists of seven high-pressure wells tied back to the FPU through dual flowlines from two drill centers with produced oil and gas transported by export pipelines. The complete paper discusses best practices and learnings from FPU transportation and installation, hookup and commissioning (HUC), subsea flowlines, export pipelines, and subsea-equipment installations.

Background

The Anchor project is a deepwater high-pressure project with a shut-in tubing pressure greater than 15,000 psi and flowing tubing temperature up to 275°F. The Anchor field is approximately 140 miles off the Louisiana coast (Fig. 1 above). Subsea development will use one multiphase pump at one of the drill centers to boost production in its flowlines between the drill center and the FPU. The 20,000-psi-rated equipment used for the Anchor project includes drilling, completions, workover and intervention, and production operations.

The project’s major offshore installation work orders were executed in early 2020. In addition to overcoming preexisting technological and economic challenges, the project was further strained by the global pandemic.

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