Flow assurance issues associated with deepwater flowlines and pipelines remain central to cost-effective field developments. Wax, asphaltene and hydrate plug formation comprise the key concerns; corrosion, erosion and chemical incompatibility issues also fall within the flow assurance umbrella. Driven by the high cost of remediation, including deferred production, operators typically specify development schemes focused on ensuring high tolerance to production chemistry and operational upsets. Confident predictions of operating envelopes assuring a clear flow path appear commonplace; efforts to broaden these envelopes may lead to less costly development schemes and higher degrees of operating freedom.
Carmon Creek is Shell's Heavy Oil In-Situ thermal field development project in Peace River, Alberta, Canada. The Peace River Lease contains some 10 billion barrels of bitumen in-place at a depth of 600 m with viscosity as high as 100,000 cP. The Carmon Creek Phase 1&2 facilities, targeting a subset of this resource, are planned to start-up in 2018 and include oil treatment at 80,000 bod, produced water recycling and steam generation at 50 kt/d and electricity from co-generation at 600 MW. Over the project life-cycle, approximately 7000 dedicated wells (injectors and producers) will be drilled. The Carmon Creek development concept is a combination of cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and vertical steam drive (VSD) utilizing vertical and deviated wells in inverted 7-spot patterns at a well spacing of 115m (or 2.8 acres). Produced and imported gas is burnt to generate steam and electricity in co-generation facilities. Electricity is exported to market. After transfer of the thermal energy in the steam the bitumen viscosity is reduced sufficiently enabling production via conventional beam pumps. The produced emulsion is separated into gas, oil and water for treatment in the central processing facilities. Acid gas consisting CO2 and H2S is re-injected to deep disposal and the remaining treated produced gas burned in the co-generation facilities. Treated bitumen is mixed with diluents for pipeline export. Steam generation is fed by recycled water with excess water stored in a saline aquifer, which can be back-produced as needed. This paper provides an overview of the main aspects of the field development, the challenges related to project delivery for a mega-thermal development and the solutions that were selected to address these challenges.
Company contractor safety performance has improved dramatically over the past 10 years (Appendix A, Chart 1) due to commitment from both the contracting community and the entire organization, particularly from senior leadership. The foundation upon which this success story is written is the company's Contractor HSE Management Process (CSMP). Utilizing a risk-based approach and a "fit-for-purpose" schema that is owned and driven by line management, CSMP principles provide the foundation for integration of health, safety and environment (HSE) into the company's everyday business. At the heart of this process is "Stoplight", a tool that provides an initial assessment of contractors that have a medium to high degree of risk. First introduced into our midstream business and subsequently adopted throughout the company, Stoplight requires demonstration of alignment with the company's HSE Management System (HSE MS) as well as documented continuous performance improvement. This approach has provided the focus necessary to achieve the outstanding performance exhibited to date. The integration of CSMP into the company's business strategy is key to its success. Through our Procurement Councils and Business Performance Reviews conducted in conjunction with our contractors, clear expectations and aligned messages become apparent. Both relationships and time are maximized when these and other "face-to-face" meetings are held on a regular basis between designated company contacts and their contractor counterparts. Contractors now share key learnings and collectively develop improved practices that benefit the entire industry. Successful creation of a partnering atmosphere with our contractor community is crucial to safeguard people and our assets. This collaboration has provided the foundation for meeting the myriad of challenges that exist in the demanding oil and gas environment and in such diverse regions as South Texas, the Gulf of Mexico and Michigan. Introduction In 1991, the company reviewed the safety performance of its contractors based on a recognized, objective industry indicator, the OSHA Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR). Alarmingly, contractor incident rate was 300% higher than company incident rate (Appendix A, Chart 1). Historically, due to the high risks and exposures involved, poor contractor safety performance was accepted as a natural by-product of producing oil and gas. For many years industry took a reactive approach to this problem, often stating that accidents "just happen" and are inherent with such work activities. Line management realized that traditional reactive techniques were not effective in the long term and that managing safety was not "hard engineering", but "human engineering". Since contractors were providing the majority of the work force for everyday activities, leadership identified the need to build partnerships to collectively identify opportunities for safety performance improvement. Based on this realization and the supporting data, "Vision 2000" was developed.1 (Appendix A, Chart 1). This plan to dramatically improve safety performance (combined company and contractor TRIR of 0.5 by YE 2000) was conveyed by company leadership to all employees and contractors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.