A Progress Report Test Of Submerged Production System
Authors: Burkhardt Joseph A. 
Published: December 2007

American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc.

Offshore installation of Exxon's Submerged Production System (SPS) is nearing completion. Production System (SPS) is nearing completion. The pilot test which is being performed in the West Delta Block 73 Field in the Gulf of Mexico will have all of the equipment elements necessary to develop and produce deepwater oil reserves. Furthermore, the pilot test procedures for installing, operating, and procedures for installing, operating, and maintaining the underwater equipment and wells are applicable to deepwater use. The test will provide information to verify equipment design, provide information to verify equipment design, evaluate installation and maintenance procedures and assess operating performance of the SPS.

The equipment manufacturing phase of the test is essentially complete; only the final assembly of the production riser remains. A substantial amount of novel equipment has been manufactured, assembled and tested. This effort required 15 calendar months before offshore installation could start. Although numerous problems were encountered, lack of adequate quality control at all levels of manufacturing required the most effort to correct. The entire land phase operation was geared to finding and correcting problems before the equipment went offshore. problems before the equipment went offshore. The offshore installation phase is about 85 percent complete. A large amount of this work percent complete. A large amount of this work has been performed using atypical if not unique procedures. Two structures have been installed procedures. Two structures have been installed on the seabed. Three wells have been drilled, five pipelines laid and connected, two electric cables laid and connected, and production and control facilities installed on an existing platform. Although unexpected problems have platform. Although unexpected problems have been encountered, they were solved using techniques suitable for deepwater. Some areas where improvements in equipment performance and reduction in installation costs can be achieved have been identified. It is much too early to reach firm value judgments on the overall system; however, the test goals are being achieved and the results to date bolster our confidence that truly deepwater oil reserves are within reach of present production technology.

Introduction

This paper is a progress report on the evaluation of a Submerged Production System (SPS) for producing deepwater oil reserves. In a previous producing deepwater oil reserves. In a previous paper, the system was described in some detail paper, the system was described in some detail and the results of extensive land tests were presented. The subject of this paper is the presented. The subject of this paper is the fabrication of the prototype system and its installation in Exxon's West Delta Block 73 Field in the Gulf of Mexico.

For clarity, the elements of the SPS and a description of the pilot test installation are briefly reviewed in the following sentences. Figure 1 is a schematic representation of the pilot test installation in the production mode. pilot test installation in the production mode.