PRODUCTION ENGINEERING II

PCB 3073

Topic
Field Development Concept
Semester: January 2015

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES (CLO)

1. Differentiate between various types of offshore structure.
2. Analyze the HSE requirement for oil and gas fields operation.
3. Propose the suitable processes and treatment equipment to
manage produced oil, gas and water.

4. Perform standard engineering calculations for the design of

separator, storage tanks and pipelines.

LECTURE OUTCOMES
At the end of this lecture, students should be able to:
Theory and description of oil platform

Identify different types of oil platforms

Differentiate between various types of offshore structures

SELECTION OF DEEP-WATER
PRODUCTION CONCEPTS
Platform size depends on facilities to be installed on top
side i.e. Oil rig, living quarters, Helipad etc.
Classification of water depths are commonly divided as
follows:
< 350 m - Shallow water
< 1,500 m - Deep water
> 1,500 m - Ultra deep water

BASIC TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES

Stability
The formula for the metacentric height GM (definition of static stability) is given as:
GM = CB + I/V - CG
where CB = Centre of buoyancy, I = area moment of inertia, V = volume and CG
= center of gravity.
Metacentric height (GM): The metacentric height is the distance between the center
of gravity of an offshore structure and its metacenter.
Metacenter: Metacenter, the theoretical point at which an imaginary vertical line
passing through the centre of buoyancy and centre of gravity intersects the imaginary
vertical line through a new centre of buoyancy created when the body is displaced,
or tipped, in the water, however little.
Centre of buoyancy (CB): The center of buoyancy is the center of mass of the
displaced water.

BASIC TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES

Center of gravity: The center of gravity is a geometric property of any object.
The center of gravity is the average location of the weight of an object.
Excitation forces
The drag forces due to wind and current will cause the column to move
laterally (giving an offset) while the inertia-dominated forces on the column due
to the wave particle accelerations will cause column dynamic excursions. Since
water particle accelerations and velocities rapidly decline with distance from the
water surface, these drag and inertia forces can be reduced by shifting the
structure displacement away from the water surface.
Response of the unit to Excitation forces
The physical properties that affect the response of a linearly elastic
structural system subjected to an external source of excitation or loading are its
mass, elastic properties, and energy-loss mechanism, or damping.

PILE SOIL INTERACTION

Deck

SOME IMPORTANT DEFINITION

Riser: Pipes used for production, drilling, and export of oil and
gas from seabed. Riser remains in tension due to self weight.
There are two types of riser Rigid, and Flexible.
Mooring System: Mooring systems have been around just as
long as man has felt the need for anchoring an offshore structure
at sea. It is important to reduce the excursion of a floating
structure due to the action of the wind, current and waves and
keep it as close as possible to its required position without
creating high restraining forces in the mooring lines.
Payload: Payload is the carrying capacity of an offshore
structure, usually measured in terms of weight.
Hull: Columns and pontoons

SOME IMPORTANT DEFINITION

Conductor Pipe: The Conductor Pipe is a large diameter pipe
that is set into the ground to provide the initial stable structural
foundation for a borehole or oil well. It can also be referred to as
a drive pipe because it is often driven into the ground with a pile
driver.
It is typically set, on petroleum wells, before any drilling
operations are performed. It is usually set with special piledriving or spudder rigs, though the drilling rig is sometimes used
to save time and money.

EXAMPLE
A floating offshore platform consist of a square deck and a cylindrical shell
column. Column contains ballast to give the structure sufficient stability. The
keel of the structure is 240ft below the water. Illustration of parameters
affecting the metacenter is given in TABLE 1. Calculate the metacentric
height of the structure using the following formula:
The formula for the metacentric height GM (definition of static stability) is
given as:
GM = CB + I/V - CG
where CB = Centre of buoyancy (ft)
I = area moment of inertia (ft4)
V = volume (ft3)and
CG = center of gravity (ft)

Table 1: Illustration of parameters affecting the metacenter

Description

Variable Comment

Square Deck
1. Weight (tons)

4000

2. CG elevation (ft)

260

above keel

Cylindrical Column
1. Diameter (ft)

40.0

2. Length (ft)

250

3. Steel weight (tons)

4000

includes compartmentation

4. CG elevation (ft)

120

above keel

5. Ballast weight (tons)

8080

sea water of (heavy ballast)

6. CG elevation (ft)

50

above keel

Stability
1. I (ft4)

250,000

Offshore Structure

Bottom Supported

Fixed

Compliant

Floating

Neutrally Buoyant

Positively Buoyant

Minimal

Articulated Platforms

Semi-submersed

Jacket Based

Guyed Tower

Semi-submersed
based FPSs

Gravity Based

Compliant Tower

Ship-shaped FPSOs

Mon-column Spars

Tension Leg
Platform (TLP)

FIXED PLATFORMS
Built on concrete or steel legs or both.
Anchored directly onto the seabed
Designed for long term use

Installed in water depths up to 1700ft

Handles production up to 50,000 bbl/d

MINIMAL PLATFORMS
For the marginal field development in shallow water, fixed
production platforms with a small deck are often used.
At a minimum these structures may support the following: (1) a
few wells typically less than 10: (2) a small deck with enough
space to handle a coil tubing or wireline unit; (3) a test separator
and a well header; (4) a small crane; (5) a boat landing; and (6) a
minimum helideck.
Chevron carried out a study to identify and select, among
existing production platform concepts, the ones that would
optimise the development of fields in 150 ft (46 m) and 200 ft
(61 m) of water, and for three different design return periods (25,
50 and 100 years).
Three types
Tripod (300-433 ft)
Caissons and Braced Caissons (90-240 ft)
Monotower (120-180 ft)

MONOPOD OIL PLATFORM

TRIPOD OIL PLATFORMS

JACKET STRUCTURES

Space framed structure with tubular members supported on piled foundations.

Used for moderate water depths up to 400 M.
Jackets provides protective layer around the pipes.
Typical offshore structure will have a deck structure containing a Main Deck, a
Cellar Deck, and a Helideck.
The deck structure is supported by deck legs connected to the top of the piles. The
piles extend from above the Mean Low Water through the seabed and into the soil.
Underwater, the piles are contained inside the legs of a jacket structure which
serves as bracing for the piles against lateral loads.
The jacket also serves as a template for the initial driving of the piles. (The piles
are driven through the inside of the legs of the jacket structure).
Fixed jacket structures consist of tubular members interconnected to form a threedimensional space frame. These structures usually have four to eight legs battered
to achieve stability against toppling in waves.
These platforms generally support a superstructure having 2 or 3 decks with
drilling and production equipment and workover rigs.

FULMAR JACKET PLATFORM

2-3 Decks

4-8 Legs
Jacket Structure
Pile

GRAVITY BASE STRUCTURES

Fixed-bottom structures made from concrete Heavy and
remain in place on the seabed without the need for piles
Used for moderate water depths up to 300 M.
Part construction is made in a dry dock adjacent to the sea. The
structure is built from bottom up, like onshore structure.
At a certain point , dock is flooded and the partially built
structure floats. It is towed to deeper sheltered water where
remaining construction is completed.
After towing to field, base is filled with water to sink it on the
seabed.
Concrete gravity structures can handle production up to 200,000
bbl/D

JACK-UPS
The jack-up barges are typically three-legged structures having a deck supported
on their legs. The legs are made of tubular truss members. The deck is typically
buoyant.
The jackups are used for the exploratory drilling operation and, therefore, are
designed to move from site to site. The jack-up barges are towed while supported
by the buoyancy of their own hull. Sometimes, they are transported on top of
transport barges.
They are called jack-ups because once at the drilling site, the legs are set on the
ocean bottom and the deck is jacked up on these legs above the waterline. The
jack-up barges behave like the stationary platform during the drilling operation.
Typically used in water depths up to 500ft

COMPLIANT STRUCTURES
The definition of a compliant structure includes those
structures that extend to the ocean bottom and directly
anchored to the seafloor by piles and/or guidelines.
These structures are typically designed to have their lowest
modal frequency to be below the wave energy, as opposed
to the fixed structures, which have a first modal frequency
greater than the frequency of wave energy.
Three types:
Articulated Platforms
Compliant Tower
Guyed Tower

ARTICULATED PLATFORMS
An articulated tower is an upright tower, which is hinged at its
base with a cardan joint and is free to oscillate about this joint due
to the environment.
The base below the universal joint on the seabed may be a gravity
base or may be piled. The tower is ballasted near the universal
joint and has a large enough buoyancy tank at the free surface to
provide large restoring force (moment).
The articulated tower is used as a single-point mooring system
(SPM) to permanently moor storage and production tankers or is
utilised as a mooring and offloading medium for a shuttle tanker.
The tower must survive its lifetime storm as well as the operating
sea when attached to the tanker. Fatigue is an important criterion
for this type of system.

COMPLIANT TOWER
o A compliant tower is similar to a traditional platform and
extends from surface to the sea bottom, and it is fairly
transparent to waves.
o However, unlike its predecessor, a compliant tower is
designed to flex with the forces of waves, wind and
current.

o It uses less steel than a conventional platform for the same

water depth.
o Typically used in water depths ranging from 1,500 to 3,000
feet

GUYED TOWER
A guyed tower is a slender structure
made up of truss members, which rests
on the ocean floor and is held in place
by a symmetric array of catenary
guylines.
A guyed tower may be applicable in
deep hostile waters where the loads on
the gravity base or jacket-type
structures from the environment are
prohibitively high.
The guylines typically have several
segments.
Depth: 1,200 - 3,000ft

PROGRESSION OF FIXED PLATFORMS IN

THE GOM - DEPTHS IN METERS
(COURTESY SHELL)

SEMI-SUBMERSIBLES
They have hulls (columns and pontoons) of sufficient buoyancy
to cause the structure to flow, and sufficient weight to keep it
upright
Partially submerged and movable
Can be ballasted up or down (i.e. buoyancy tanks)
Anchored by combinations of chain, wire rope or polyester
rope, or both.
Stabilized by anchoring and ballasting
Can also be positioned by using dynamic positioning
Water Depth: 200 10,000ft

 A more popular design for

semisubmersible rigs is the
column-stabilized semisub.
Here, two horizontal hulls
are connected via cylindrical
or rectangular columns to the
drilling deck above the
water.
Smaller diagonal columns
are used to support the
structure.

FLOATING PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

o Large ships of varying
offshore
operations
applications: Floating Storage
Unit
(FSU),
Floating
Production,
Storage
and
Offloading (FPSO), Floating
Storage and Off-loading (FSO)
o FPSOs consist of large
monohull structures equipped
with processing facilities
o They are moored to a location
for long duration
o Water depth: 650 6,500ft

FLOATING STORAGE UNIT (FSU)

FLOATING PRODUCTION, STORAGE

AND OFFLOADING (FPSO)
The FPSO generally refers to ship-shaped structures with
several different mooring systems.
Early FPSOs in shallow waters and in mild environment had
spread mooring systems.
As more FPSOs were designed and constructed or converted
(from a tanker) for deep-water and harsh environments, new
more effective mooring systems were developed including
internal and external turrets.
Some turrets were also designed to be dis-connectable so that
the FPSO could be moved to a protective environment in the
event of a hurricane or typhoon.

FPSO

FLOATING STORAGE AND

OFFLOADING (FSO)

Spar Platforms
A spar is a vessel with a circular cross-section that sits vertically in
the water and is supported by buoyancy chambers (hard tanks) at the
top, a flooded midsection structure hanging from the hard tanks, and
a stabilizing keel section at the bottom.
Some unique features of a spar include favorable motion
characteristics compared with other floating systems, stability (the
center of buoyancy is above the center of gravity), cost insensitivity
to water depth, and water-depth capability up to 10,000 ft (3,048 m)
and beyond.
Moored to the seabed like Tension Leg Platforms (TLPs)
While a TLP has vertical tension tethers, a spar has more
conventional mooring lines
More stable than the TLPs
There are three (3) design configurations:
1. Conventional/ Classic spar
2. Truss spar
3. Cell spar

Cell SPAR

Tension Leg Platform (TLP)

Tension Leg Platforms (TLPs) are floating facilities that are tied down to
the seabed by vertical steel tubes called tethers.
This characteristic makes the structure very rigid in the vertical direction
and very flexible in the horizontal plane. The vertical rigidity helps to tie
in wells for production, while, the horizontal compliance makes the
platform insensitive to the primary effect of waves.
Have large columns and Pontoons and a fairly deep draught.
TLP has excess buoyancy which keeps tethers in tension. Topside
facilities, no. of risers etc. have to fixed at predesign stage.
Used for deep water from 2000 ft to 5000 ft
It has no integral storage.
It is sensitive to topside load/draught variations as tether tensions are
affected.
The first TLP was installed in Hutton Field in about 148 m water depth
Three types
1. Seastar Mini TLP
2. Moses Mini TLP
3. Buoyant Leg Structure (BLS)

 4,300 ft. water depth

13,700 tons of topsides payload
400 MMscfd
120,000 BOPD
1,200 HP Work over Rig
50,000 BWPD
6 Dry Surface Trees
8 (28) O.D. Tendons

SeaStar and Moses MiniTLP

SeaStar MiniTLP for Typhoon Field

Moses MiniTLP for the Prince Field

Buoyant Leg Structure (BLS)

Integrated Development Systems

System design covers all aspects of:
Topsides (structures and process)
Hull
Mooring system
Riser system
Subsea components
Expensive anywhere from $300M to $2B
Design must cover all aspects of system life including
installation and decommissioning

Primary Drivers for Deep-water FPUs

Water depth
Payload
Production Characteristics Well Access Requirements
Availability of Infrastructure & Market location
Platform drilling, predrilling vs. post drilling
Gas Disposal Requirements
Local Content Requirements
Field Life
Metocean (meteorology & oceanography) Conditions.

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