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The OTC 2012 Spotlight on Technology awards highlighted subsea separation and boosting and subsea heavy oil and water separation technologies in deep water.

Water handling is becoming increasingly important as a technical and economic tool for improved oil recovery and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. A global series of workshops to address these issues has been planned.

The author reflects on technology myths within oil and gas as well as the PFC-related programming at the upcoming Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition.

This paper describes the project evolution, from the first study to the implementable concept of energy production using the associated gas of two onshore facilities in Tunisia. Despite complex composition, high CO2, high H2S, and relatively low quantities, a solution was developed successfully.

After approximately 25 years of development, subsea gas compression technology has advanced to a readiness level worthy of full implementation in the North Sea.

In this paper, the authors report results from experiments as well as modeling of water/oil-emulsion rheology that can form during alkaline/surfactant/polymer injections for enhanced recovery.

Although offshore disasters are rare, they have resulted in significant loss of human life, environmental damage, and negative impacts on the larger society. We vow to learn from them, and address the technical challenges, but less often explore the role of culture, such as safety culture.

During the design of two parallel gas pipelines from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, major design changes were made to minimize project impacts, resulting in rapid approval by all five affected countries.

Recent accidents in the oil and gas industry have renewed interest in whether behavioral sciences can provide insights that can be translated into safety interventions.

Shell’s Parque das Conchas project, an ultradeepwater heavy-oil development in the northern Campos basin offshore Brazil, has won the IPTC Excellence in Project Integration Award. The award recognizes significant and unique achievements in managing and directing a project from discovery to delivery.

To become a better facilities engineer it is important to learn to understand the language of subsurface. Engineers and geoscientists embrace uncertainty in ways facilities engineers do not. Through dialogue with our colleagues we need to become more comfortable with reservoir uncertainty.

Earlier studies showed that the results of oil and gas megaprojects were quite similar to the results from other industries. More investigation shows a poorer track record, largely due to the poor functional integration that characterizes upstream project organizations.