Deep water, deep thinking

The world’s deep-water oil flows through a surprising variety of production facilities, with vessel-based schemes dominating in the Gulf of Guinea and various designs of spars, tension-leg platforms and semi-submersibles employed in the Gulf of Mexico. Engineers have difficult choices to make as they select designs for the next generation of fields in up to 3,000 metres of water, Martin Quinlan writes

A CONFLICTING mixture of engineering imperatives, economic advantages, government regulations, logistical demands, maintenance requirements and other factors comes together in the selection of production schemes for deep-water fields. When the water-depth has not been tackled before and when oil prices are seen as having a substantial down-side risk, decisions are not for the faint-hearted. However, few in the industry doubt that hydrocarbons will be flowing from fields in ultra-deep water of up to 3,000 metres within a few years. Developments over the past 10 years justify the optimism. In 1994, the world's deepest producer was Shell's Auger field, lying in 872 metres of water in the Gulf o