In the course of preparing and researching this special supplement on long-distance subsea tiebacks (LDT), I found myself reading a number of keynote addresses given at subsea technology conferences more than a decade ago by senior oil company executives.
What I found was that not only were the presentations not out of date, but they could have been written in 2005. The issues that were of significance to operators back in the early 1990s are the same issues of relevance now.
At the top of the list is reliability. In the early 1990s, the basis for concern over reliability was limited experience. Only a few operators had used subsea production, and many in management viewed it as voodoo technology only understood by a few wild-haired men in white coats, i.e., subsea engineers. Since then, subsea has been widely employed around the world on deepwater developments and in shallow waters, too, where the economics are right.
Reliability is a big issue now, predominantly on big ultra-deepwater fields. The supermajors want to install equipment in new areas and water depths. BP, for one, has spent considerable time, energy, and money developing a new methodology for calculating the reliability of equipment that has little or no track record. With a big percentage of its future earnings due to come from deepwater, BP wants to produce high-pressure fields using subsea wells.
And in an issue directly related to LDT, there is a need to ensure regular production from natural gas fields, that feed either LNG plants or a national grid.
The other issues exercising operators in the early 1990s were the clash between standardization and innovation and contractual relationship with contractors. Sound familiar? And these issues are not independent of one another.
Back in the 1990s, operators felt they were trapped in a cleft stick. They wanted to move away from the “every development is an R&D project” approach toward subsea to the idea of repeatable concepts and cheaper equipment, which is standardization. At the same time, though, they were keen to see where advances in technology would take subsea.
There were concerns in some quarters that standardizing would inhibit the hardware manufacturers from moving ahead with new ideas and restrict innovation. Opinions were voiced that operators had to have a new relationship with their suppliers to ensure a continuing string of new equipment.
As subsea projects became ever bigger and more complex, manufacturers and contractors found themselves in ever more expensive and long-winded bid processes. BP’s landmark West of Shetlands developments in the UK sector was the first of these projects. Project risks, in the form of engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) contracts, were shifted onto supply side consortia that found themselves involved in projects exceeding their own net worth in value.
A decade later, these challenges continue to face an industry that is confronted by ever more technically complex projects.
Steven Sasanow is editor ofSubsea Engineering News, which for more than 20 years, has been a source of information on subsea technology, projects, and the inside angle. For more information, email [email protected].
