The Jack and St. Malo fields were developed in a deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GoM) setting by Chevron and co-owners and commenced production in 2014. The reservoirs are located roughly 25 miles apart, about 250 miles southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana. Water depths in both fields are around 7,000 feet, and the reservoirs lie approximately five miles below the water surface. The Jack and St. Malo fields were developed with subsea completions flowing back to the Walker Ridge Regional Platform, the largest, by displacement, semi-submersible floating production unit (FPU) in the GoM. The Lower Tertiary trend (LTT) in the GoM poses a number of documented challenges for flowing reservoir fluid from the sand face to surface facility. The key challenges are related to low permeability, high pressures, high temperatures, as well as water and well depths. The naturally high pressures driving Jack and St. Malo fields during the early stages of development will decrease over time as the fields are produced. To compensate and maintain production levels, it was decided to deploy three powerful subsea pumping systems on the seabed to boost fluids from the wells to the host platform. While a number of subsea boosting systems have been deployed over the years, the Jack and St. Malo fields required technology qualification in order to meet design requirements in terms of water depth, pressure rating and shaft power. This paper will describe the technology qualification program of the world's first high pressure seabed boosting system, as well as the subsequent delivery project and deployment of three subsea boosting systems in the Jack and St. Malo fields. An overview of the drivers for selecting this technology will be provided, as well as insight into early operational experience from the field.
This paper reviews the results of a study performed for the DeepStar Project, CTR A802-2, 'Concept Study and Investigation of Key Areas of Interest for Subsea Systems in Deepwater' (Ref. 1). The report documents the results of a study of subsea manifold systems as applied to the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Of particular interest is the development of a range of system level philosophies based on recent and ongoing experience from the operators and vendors. Introduction Three subsea system scenarios are addressed for deepwater subsea developments in the Gulf of Mexico. Each system represents a variation in development philosophy, based on Cluster, Modular, and Integrated Template Systems. The study was used as a tool to identify the available technology and hardware in the key areas of flowline connections, guidelineless operations, and non-rig intervention, for each concept considered, and for water depths from 3,000-6,000 R. Vendor surveys and operator field history were used as input for the concepts developed. Study Approach The study was initiated with a subsea workshop to review operator and vendor experience in deepwater applications. The workshop provided input and direction for the rest of the study by defining the concepts to be considered and key areas of concern. A vendor survey was also issued to solicit information on the state of development of the primary subsea hardware components. Example configurations were developed for each of the base case concepts, including seafloor layouts, sample component selection, budgetary level costs and schedules, The three concepts were evaluated on a comparative basis and rationale was noted regarding potential scenarios that would favor each method of development. DeepStar Subsea Workshop. A DeepStar Subsea Workshop was held in April 1995, to review the general features and configurations of systems planned or in place. The workshop included both operating company and vendor personnel, and served as an open forum for discussion of design alternatives, and rationale that should be considered when selecting the features of a deepwater subsea manifold concept. Three key areas of interest were defined as being critical to the development of deepwater systems:Guidelineless Operations,ROV and Non-Rig Intervention Operations, andFlowline Connection Methods These topics were discussed at the workshop and further evaluated in the study. The resulting rationale and philosophy were applied to three subsea concepts that were each developed to a conceptual design level to illustrate the range of equipment available for each concept. The DeepStar Subsea Workshop was well received by the oil company participants and vendors. A number of comments were noted that this sort of forum should be promoted on an annual basis as a vehicle for exchange of philosophies and experiences.
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