Falcon Corridor: Infrastructure with Future Marginal Fields in Mind
Authors: Hall J.D. , Bullard Denny B. , Gray William M. , Drew Mark  C. 
Published: October 2008

The original Falcon Field consisted of two subsea development wells in a water depth of 3450 feet tied back 32.6 miles to a new host platform in a water depth of 389 feet Shortly before first production at Falcon, the Harrier discovery was made. Two additional discoveries (Tomahawk and Raptor) occurred during the Harrier development.

Although the Falcon field was large enough to justify the long distance tie-back to a new host facility, Harrier, Tomahawk and Raptor were dependent upon a readily available and flexible infrastructure that allowed for shorter tie-back distances and rapid project execution.

This paper presents an overview of the Falcon Corridor development project with a focus on the expandable infrastructure and the project execution strategy that allowed additional discoveries in the Falcon Corridor to be put on line in rapid succession.

Introduction

The Falcon Field was discovered in April, 2001 on East Breaks Blocks 579/623 in the western US Gulf of Mexico. The water depth at the discovery well was 3450 feet.

The discovery was owned by Pioneer Natural Resources and Mariner Energy. The field was operated by Mariner Energy until March, 2002 when Pioneer acquired additional interest and became operator. In March, 2003 Pioneer acquired all of the remaining interest and currently owns 100% of the Falcon Field and the surrounding leases. Other prospects had been identified in the general area of the Falcon Field; therefore, a development strategy which provided for future tie-ins was preferred, if it could be achieved at a reasonable cost. Figure 1 depicts the area that is now referred to as the "Falcon Corridor".

Because there had been very little deepwater development in this area of the Gulf of Mexico, existing infrastructure was limited. As such, several development scenarios were evaluated including a floating production facility over the Falcon Field. Since Falcon was a dry gas field, it was also a prime candidate for a subsea tie-back; however, there were no host platforms in the vicinity with the capacity to handle the flows expected from the Falcon wells and future discoveries.

Figure 1. The Falcon Corridor, East Breaks Area Gulf of Mexico (Available in full paper)

It was decided in October, 2001 that a subsea tie-back to a new host platform would be the most economical solution. The host platform would be located in Mustang Island A-103 in a water depth of 389 ft. and 32.6 miles away from the Falcon Field. An 18 mile 18 inch export pipeline would also be required to get the gas to an existing gas gathering system (Central Texas Gas System) with the capacity to handle the Falcon Gas as well as future discoveries.

Flexibility and Expandability at a Reasonable Cost

With a technically sound development plan, the next challenge was to construct an infrastructure that would allow for future discoveries to be connected. Since the next exploration drilling program would not be starting until after the Falcon development was well underway, it was not certain that there would be any future fields to connect; therefore, the cost of flexibility and expandability had to be minimized.