Floating production systems
Marking a major milestone as the Gulf of Mexico’s second 20,000-psi deepwater development, the project underscores how advanced high-pressure technology, management of flow challenges, and the floating production system’s role as a regional hub are helping open the door to more Inboard Wilcox development.
Despite a 2.8% drop in liquefied natural gas exports in 2025 because of lost market share in China, Australia anticipates a 2026 rebound as new North West Shelf capacity comes online. Meanwhile, East Coast operators brace for a tsunami of wells entering the decommissioning pipeline and potential energy shortfalls necessitating LNG imports.
Woodside’s $12-billion gas project offshore Western Australia is expected to produce up to 8 mtpa once it’s complete.
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Despite major advancements in deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico, FPSO usage has yet to increase. -
As it has since 1969, the world came to OTC to make critical decisions, share ideas, and develop business partnerships to meet global energy demands.
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This paper describes the CLOV deepwater megaproject in Block 17 offshore Angola, which cost USD 8.4 billion to first oil.
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Historically, the marine systems on a spar are relatively simple.
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Construction costs, contractor involvement, flow assurance, and the integration of new technologies created to improve production are some of the deepwater challenges exacerbated by the current low price environment.
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As many platforms begin to produce beyond their design life, maintenance of mooring systems becomes more critical. With redundancies in place, operators may be unaware of initial failures, which can have major consequences if another failure occurs.
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A routine maintenance project became more complicated when an ROV inspection exposed unexpected trenching that reduced the holding capacity of the system.
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Though the projects that have already been sanctioned will ensure that spending in the FPS sector will remain high over the forecast period, the growth in FPS market is significantly less than expected due to the collapse in oil prices, and installations in 2018 will decline.
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A deepwater field located offshore Sabah, east Malaysia, features a spar dry-tree unit (DTU) and multiple subsea-hub tiebacks to a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO).
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After 10 years, the world’s first cell spar, Anadarko’s Red Hawk, was decommissioned. It remained the only cell spar fabricated and again made history as the deepest floating production unit ever decommissioned in the GOM.
