Integrated Flow-Assurance Modeling of the BP Angola Block 18 Western Area Development

Abstract

As oilfield developments become more challenging and economically challenging, flow assurance has become crucial to the feasibility of projects. Consequently, flow-assurance issues such as hydrates or wax deposition must now be considered early in concept selection. Modern numerical methods, coupled with the latest software engineering techniques, now allow the rigorous calculation of multiphase thermal hydraulic behavior in an integrated asset model (IAM) on time scales acceptable for concept selection.This paper describes the application of a new IAM tool to analyze options for the development of fields in the western part of BP's Angolan deepwater Block 18. Novel aspects include the embedding of field scheduling rules such that the drilling schedules were predicted automatically from the model. In addition, different field architectures were considered including tubing and pipeline sizes, looping of pipelines and subsea multiphase boosting, and the impact on production rates and drilling schedules was quantified. Furthermore, the option to tie back to the planned Greater Plutonio floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel was also modeled with the forecast ullage profile being imposed on production from the new fields. All calculations were performed using rigorous multiphase thermal-hydraulic models allowing flowassurance constraints to be analyzed simultaneously.