OTC expands for 2007

Following its 24-year record attendance last year, the 2007 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is expanding its exhibit space into Houston’s Reliant Stadium and has added more outdoor exhibit space. As of late January, OTC 07 had 185 new exhibitors and expects attendance to top 60,000

The March “Offshore” magazine included data about the offshore rig market’s year of highs in 2006, and the trend is expected to continue in 2007. Rig demand remains strong, as it has for several years. Marketed offshore drilling fleet utilization is essentially 100% for all rig types around the globe.

The numbers reflect the interest resulting from $50 oil and the continued production of global offshore. TheOil & Gas Journal reported that 500 Bbbl of oil have been discovered, of which 200 Bbbl have been produced, with giant offshore fields accounting for 41% of the total oil discovered.

OTC provides the opportunity for attendees to learn about new technologies, E&P activities in specific regions/projects, geoscience, seismic imaging, industry trends, to mention just a few of the topics.

This overview provides a sampling of the many sessions available. The schedule is subject to change.

Project perspectives

Total launches the technical program on Monday, April 30, with an in-depth look at the Dalia project.

In December 2006, Dalia became the third field in block 17 offshore Angola to come onstream. Discovered in September 1997, the field lies 135 km (84 mi) off the coast in water depths ranging from 1,200 to 1,500 m (3,937-4,921 ft).

Total discusses one of the world’s biggest deepwater developments, comprising 71 subsea wells (including 34 producers, 30 water injectors and three gas injectors), a record at these depths. The system is designed to produce up to 240,000 b/d of oil.

The length of the drilling program - nearly 2,500 days - reflects the scale of Dalia. When completed, 67 highly deviated, near-horizontal wells with an average length of 1,100 m (3,609 ft) will have been drilled.

Eight flexible risers that take the fluid up to the surface facilities are the project’s key innovation. The size pushes the envelope of integrated production bundle technology. Gas lift tubes and trace heating cables are wound around the 305-mm (12-in.) flexible pipe core, which is protected by 10 layers of insulation and overwrapped by carcasses to ensure the mechanical strength of the risers, which are 1,650 m (5,413 ft) long and weigh 800 metric tons (882 tons).

The FPSO has a 30,000-metric-ton (33,069-ton) topside to treat and store the oil and export it to a loading buoy, as well as to reinject production water and gas after compression. An innovative solution is deployed to meet the challenge of separating the oil and water while ensuring that dissolved sour naphthenate compounds do not solidify in the oil.

Technical challenges - and lessons learned - will be highlighted from the operator’s experience with 40 km (25 mi) of flowlines, 35 km (22 mi) of water injection lines, 10 km (6.2 mi) of gas injection lines, and 75 km (47 mi) of umbilicals.

The Independence Trail Natural Gas Pipeline project, part of the GoM Independence Hub development, will be discussed in a session on Tuesday, May 1. Trail is a new 216-km (134-mi), 610-mm (24-in.) pipeline that will have the capacity to transport up to 1 bcf/d of natural gas from theIndependence Hub to an interconnect with Tennessee Gas Pipeline at West Delta block 68.

Pipeline and steel catenary riser design, installation challenges and pipeline hydrotesting, dewatering, and commissioning will be included in the session.

Another session on Tuesday about the Independence project will include overviews from the owner’s and producer’s perspectives. Codevelopment of the Spiderman and San Jacinto fields will be discussed by Dominion E&P Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

Hydro offers an update on its Ormen Lange project on Wednesday, May 2. The field is expected to contribute to a doubling of the company’s gas exports by 2010. Production is scheduled to begin in October 2007.

A subsea compressor will be tested in a pool at Ormen Lange’s processing facility at Nyhamna, Norway. At a sea depth of 860 m (2,822 ft), the compressor is expected to halve the costs of development and operation compared to the costs of a platform solution. Photo courtesy of Hydro.

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Hydro discovered Norway’s largest gas field, Ormen Lange, in 1997 and now is building its subsea wells and pipelines, including one of the world’s longest undersea pipelines.Langeled will transport gas 1,200 km (746 mi) from Norway to England via the Sleipner distribution station in the North Sea.

The project’s subsea compression pilot also is scheduled for discussion. A subsea compressor is being tested in a pool at Ormen Lange’s processing facility at Nyhamna. The work to qualify the technology has been taking place since 2003, and planning will continue for the next two years before the actual test phase at Nyhamna begins in 2009. By the end of 2011, the pilot program should have qualified the technology.

Partners in the Ormen Lange field in the Norwegian Sea will spend NOK 2.5 billion ($410 million) to develop the subsea compression station. With a compression station at a sea depth of 860 m (2,822 ft), the developers expect to halve the costs of development and operation compared to the costs of a platform solution.

In early March, Vetco Aibel’s contract for building Ormen Lange’s gas process facility was completed at Aukra in Møre og Romsdal. It included the export dock, condensate storage area, and defrosting system, which will be discussed in the session.

Taking it up a notch

Deepwater drilling riser enhancements and management will be presented in a session on Monday, April 30. Underbalanced and managed-pressure drilling technology will be included, highlighting a case study of the first dual-lateral well successfully drilled underbalanced in Libya.

A global roundup on Monday of conventional and nonconventional drilling applications will include successful operations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and the North Sea. Characterization of cement systems and reverse circulation cementing are scheduled. Geological considerations and constraints in planning and executing horizontal wells and optimization of powered rotary steering complete this session.

An extended reach drilling (ERD) session on Tuesday, May 1, includes a case study of successful completion of an ERD exploration project off Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, discussed by Halliburton and Total Australia.

Application of rotary steerable systems for ERD in Alaskan North Slope slimhole development wells also is presented by Alaskan Energy Resources, ConocoPhillips, and Halliburton Energy Services.

Versabar’s deck raising system was recognized as one of the 13 winning technologies in OTC’s Spotlight on New Technology Awards.

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Other topics in this session include: ERD techniques and technologies (K&M Technology Group); dynamic simulations (Smith International); new generation frontier drilling rigs (Parker Drilling); trajectory risk index (Schlumberger); and drillstring technology (Grant Prideco, BP Plc., and GlobalSantaFe Drilling).

Regional insights

Various regions will be covered in other sessions. For example, the East Coast of Canada will be a topic on Monday, April 30. The exploration potential of the deepwater off Newfoundland and Labrador will be discussed by ConocoPhillips Canada and Memorial University.

In October, ConocoPhillips submitted to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board an environmental assessment report for the Laurentian Sub-basin Exploration Drilling Program. It is near the mouth of the Laurentian Channel at the offshore entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, about 250 km (155 mi) southwest of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador at water depths ranging from 100 to 2,300 m (328 to 7,546 ft).

Drilling operations are scheduled to begin in 2Q 2007, depending on regulatory approval and rig availability.

Rowan Co.s will discuss lessons learned from the first jackup drilling operation on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. In December, theRowan Gorilla VIdrilled the West Bonne Bay F-12 well, southeast of St. John’s near the Terra Nova oil field (Jeanne d’Arc basin), to a TD 4,666 m (15,308 ft). Sidetrack well F-12Z further delineated the structure and gathered additional reservoir information. In both wells, hydrocarbons were encountered in the Upper Hibernia formation.

ExxonMobil Canada will present a technical overview of its Sable compression facilities. Sable is Canada’s first offshore natural gas project, 200 km (124 mi) off Nova Scotia’s east coast.

The $2-billion Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP) consists of three offshore platforms, a 201-km (125-mi) subsea pipeline, gas-processing and fractionation plants, and a 1,046-km (650-mi) gas sales pipeline to New England.

The project produces 400 to 500 MMcfd of gas and 20,000 b/d of natural gas liquids. Preliminary processing of gas from Thebaud field and from existing satellite platforms, Alma, North Triumph, Venture, and South Venture, takes place on the Thebaud processing platform. The gas is then sent via 200-km (124-mi) subsea pipeline to the 17 MMcm/day (600 MMcf/d) Goldboro gas processing plant in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia.

Thebaud’s 6,895-metric-ton (7,600-ton) compression platform has been installed next to the Thebaud central processing platform. The eight-leg jacket was built at Saipem Energy International’s Intermare Sarda division in Sardinia, Italy, and barged to Rotterdam. Daewoo built the topsides and SIF Group BV fabricated the piles.

The interplay of salt tectonics and sedimentation in the dynamic depositional systems of the Mesozoic Scotian Margin salt basins off Nova Scotia will be described by speakers from Dalhousie University and the Geological Survey of Canada.

Two Dalhousie researchers, Dr. Djordje Grujic and Dr. Juergen Adam, use physical materials such as silicone (to mimic salt) and silica sand (to mimic crustal rocks) and then expose them to tectonic movement patterns imposed by a computer-controlled machine. They can recreate millions of years of sediment deposition and the earth’s crust movement in one week.

The issue of sufficient pipeline capacity for transporting new East Coast gas supplies will be discussed by Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline (M&NP), Halifax, Nova Scotia.

M&NP is a 1,400-km (870-mi) transmission pipeline system built in 1999 to move natural gas from developments offshore Nova Scotia to markets in Atlantic Canada and the northeastern US. The system consists of a main line that runs from the Sable Offshore Energy Inc. (SOEI) gas plant at landfall in Goldboro, through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

In a related topic, the Floating Pipeline Co., also of Halifax, will discuss compressed natural gas (CNG) transport.

Interest in CNG has been growing as North American production of conventional natural gas is reaching a plateau. As much as 4,500 tcf of gas can be defined as stranded world-wide (Zeus Development Corp., 2003). The drive to monetize these reserves, previously regarded as too remote or expensive to bring to market, has pushed the continued evolution of marine transport of CNG.

The session will wrap up with a review of the Canada Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board’s Digital Data Management Centre.

Pipelines, CNG and LNG transport

A comprehensive overview of CNG and other LNG alternatives is set for Tuesday, May 1, and includes further discussion of marine CNG transport by the Centre for Marine CNG, EnerSea Transport Llc., CETech, Trans Ocean Gas and Seatec Engineering UK Ltd. The American Bureau of Shipping discusses its development of a guide for CNG shippers, and Knutsen OAS Shipping describes PNG as a next-generation marine gas-transport solution.

Another session on Monday presents new pipeline technology and applications with an emphasis on lowering risks of offshore operations. Lincoln Electric Co. will discuss a new process to girth weld with gasless technology; GSC will discuss continuum FEM modeling of upheaval and lateral buckling; BP America will describe data analysis to determine pipeline risk assessment in deepsea furrow regions; using platelet technology to seal and locate leaks in subsea umbilical lines will be presented by Brinker Technology; and Subsea 7 will discuss implementation of the new HISC criteria for the Ekofisk bundle project. Institut Français du Pétrole will discuss thermal insulation material for subsea pipelines; and Tenaris describes the influence of the UOE process on collapse and collapse propagation pressure of steel deepwater pipelines.

LNG pipeline, transfer, storage, and safety issues are the focus of another session on Tuesday, including speakers from Fluor Chart Energy & Chemicals, DNV Consulting, Arup Energy, Technip, ExxonMobil and Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan.

Ultra deepwater pipeline installation follows on Thursday, May 3, covering topics such as J-lay and steep S-lay complementary tools; plastic-lined flowlines; partial span coverage for deepwater marine risers and tendons with fairings; riser VIV assessment; combined tow method for deepwater pipeline and riser installation; deepwater SCR manufacturing criteria; and remote connection of deepwater pipelines using standard bolted flanges.

Geophysics and reservoir monitoring

On Monday, April 30, geology will take center stage. A morning session includes the following presentations:

Measuring Velocity Sensitivity to Production-Induced Strain at Ekofisk Field Using Time Lapse Time Shifts and Compaction Logs
A Case of SI Attenuation in 4D Seismic Data Recorded with a Permanently Installed Array
Estimating 4D Velocity Changes and Contact Movement on Norne Field
Petrophysical Seismic Inversion Applied to Troll Field
Use of Oceanbottom Seismic for Improved Imaging at Clair Field
3D/4 C and 4 D Oceanbottom Seismic Surveys in the Caspian Sea
High Resolution Geological Visualization Using Spectral Inversion.

Two sessions on Tuesday, May 1, deliver international perspectives on geohazards.

The morning session addresses topics such as current best practices in offshore geohazard investigations; offshore slope instability; a case study of evaluations of passive continental margins at Hydro’s Ormen Lange; logging, sampling and testing for geohazards; and the measurement and monitoring of excess pore pressure leading to instability problems.

Also discussed will be a pilot project to improve seismic resolution and better constrain the shear strength of marine sediments and statistical methods for establishing characteristic soil properties.

The second geohazards session on Tuesday afternoon picks up with excess pore pressure and sediment deformation resulting from gas-hydrates dissociation and dissolution.

World petroleum: security and new models of business

On Monday, April 30, the new dynamics of energy security will be presented. The effect of Russia and China on US energy security and the issue of whether national oil companies (NOCs) are truly multinationals or energy seekers are included in this global perspective.

Discussion of changing political and business risk dynamics within the context of shifting world petroleum supplies is particularly salient to today’s international relationships and conflicts.

A general session on Tuesday, May 1, tackles the central issues moving forward relative to deliverability rather than availability of petroleum resources.

The panel of experts from OPEC, major research institutions, and national and international oil companies will address the realities ahead for the petroleum industry by discussing resources, investments and supplies, opportunities and potential constraints facing the industry, the importance of downstream in supporting market stability, the role of producer-consumer dialogue, and how the petroleum industry could deal with new environmental realities.

NOCs and international oil companies (IOCs) are the topic of a second general session on Wednesday, May 2.

Most of the remaining proved oil reserves are in the hands of NOCs, leading to a two-fold problem for the next decade: the growing imbalance of reserves between NOCs and IOCs may become a growing challenge; and the pressure to produce more will increase because the demand for fossil fuels eventually will exceed supply.

Host countries and NOCs have been collaborating with IOCs and service companies to produce their reserves for decades. However, the present situation may dictate that this collaboration must evolve, and possibly drastically. In other words, the present industry model may need to change.

This general session will give the podium to eminent industry leaders to share their visions on adaptation to this changing situation.

Various subjects will be open for discussion, including production increase by NOCs, technical/management expertise, manpower, funding, etc. Are NOCs more open to technical innovations? Will NOCs’ reserves open to IOCs? Has the time come for change in the role of the service industry in this context?

A panel of independents will continue a related discussion within this context on Wednesday, May 2. The worldwide rising quest for energy has once again brought to the forefront flexibility and risk-taking attitudes of independents. Technical challenges still exist - rig availability, rising commodity prices, increasing service and supply costs, workforce issues, weather-related risk, and geopolitical concerns. Additionally, independents have to search harder for funding.

Nevertheless, independents are positioned uniquely to support both NOCs and majors to bring production faster to the market. This panel will address some of the strategies that independents have developed to rise to the challenge of meeting world oil demand.

Topical luncheons and the Next Wave

Introduced last year, OTC’s Next Wave is a program designed to provide career insights for professionals under the age of 35 who are looking to expand and grow their role within the offshore E&P industry.

Taking place on Thursday, May 3, this event includes a general session, career insight panel, and roundtable breakouts.

During the breakouts, more than 20 discussions are facilitated by industry experts, giving attendees the opportunity to network, learn, and share with peers from around the world. The goal is to share best practices, brainstorm solutions, discover resources, and address current issues and trends.

Attendees will hear presentations on management, implementation, and research and technology-related fields:

A Close Peek Into the Reality of Peak Natural Gas and Oil - Matt Simmons, chairman, Simmons and Co. International
Meeting the Quest for Dynamic Offshore Drilling in the Energy Frontier - Mark Jackson, president and CEO, Noble Corp.
An Update on Nova Scotia’s Petroleum Prospects - Bill Dooks, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Energy
Needing the Right Data: Exploration and Well Testing - A Global Market Perspective - Trevor Burgess, group director Marketing and Technology, Expro International Group
Confessions of an Offshore Technology Geek: Lessons Learned the Hard Way - Peter Marshall, proprietor, Moonshine Hill, MHP Systems Engineering
Technical Staffing: Supply and Demand Challenges - Timothy Parker, senior vice president, Dominion E&P
Booming Offshore Oil and Gas Construction Business of China Fosters International Cooperation - Xizhao Jiang, president, CNOOC Engineering
A Technical Challenge for the Greater Gorgon Project: CO2 Geosequestration - Dorine Bosman, Technical Services, Shell Development; Enrique A. Carballido, Gorgon Development geologist, Shell Development
Energy and Geopolitics - Michael Economides, professor, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston
A Thousand Barrels a Second - Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist, ARC Financial Corp.
The Sakhalin II Phase 2 Project - David Greer, project director and deputy CEO, Sakhalin Energy Investment Co.

OTC 2007 spotlight on new technology awards

OTC has announced the 13 winning technologies that will receive the 2007 Spotlight on New Technology Awards recognizing innovative technologies significantly affecting offshore E&P:

Aker Kvaerner Subsea - SeaBooster

Aker Kvaerner Well Services - PowerTrac Cone Crusher Scale Mill Concept

Baker Oil Tools - Diamond FRAQ Polymer-Free High-Performance Fracturing Fluid

Baker Oil Tools - linEXX Solid Expandable Monobore Liner Extension System

DYNAenergetic GmbH & Co. KG - DYNAenergetics No Debris Gun System

FARO Technologies - FARO TrackArm

Jet-Lube Inc. - SEAL-GUARD ECF and NCS-30 ECF

Modec International, LLC - MOSES Self Stable Integrated Platform Tension Leg Platform

Single Buoy Moorings Inc. - LNG Toroidal Swivel

Secure Drilling - The Secure Drilling System

Versabar Inc. - Eugene Island 330C and 330B Topsides Raising Design

Vetco Gray - MR-6H SE Marine Riser Connection

Weatherford - OverDrive System

Start the day with industry breakfasts

OTC and the US Dept. of Commerce have organized industry breakfasts, which offer expert views on doing business in developing regions. Because seating is limited, participants are encouraged to purchase tickets with advance registration.

Tuesday, May 1

Sri Lanka - Exploring New Offshore Oil and Gas Opportunities

Sri Lankan officials from the Ministry of Petroleum and Board of Investment will provide an overview of the country’s upcoming first licensing round, which will offer highly prospective offshore acreage in the Gulf of Mannar and Cauvery basin. Sri Lankan officials and industry experts will review the country’s offshore drilling history, recent geophysical work, the sizable petroleum potential off the west coast, downstream markets for oil and gas discoveries and Sri Lanka as a place to invest

Wednesday, May 2

Gulf of Guinea

Senior officials from the Gulf of Guinea countries and US energy companies will highlight oil and gas prospects in the Gulf of Guinea, as well as commercial opportunities and areas for new investment.

Thursday, May 3

The Arctic of Canada - Canada’s Evolving Offshore Oil and Gas Industries

Federal officials from Canada’s Northern Oil and Gas Directorate and National Energy Board will highlight their management, regulatory and policy roles in the development of Canada’s offshore Arctic oil and natural gas resources. The Northwest Territories’ (NWT) Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Investment will discuss commercial opportunities for NWT oil and natural gas sector investment. A US private sector perspective on Arctic Canada oil and natural gas sector investment, exploration, development and environment will be presented.