The annual Subsea Tieback Forum & Exhibition is scheduled for March 2 – 4, 2010, in Galveston, Texas, at the Moody Gardens Hotel & Conference Center. More than 2,500 attendees and 150 exhibitors are expected at this year’s conference.
In celebration of Subsea Tieback’s 10th year anniversary, this year’s theme is “10 Years And Coming On Strong.” As the industry changes, sharing knowledge and collective experiences becomes more crucial to improve the quality, safety, and economics of the subsea tieback industry.
As in the past, only by participating in this conference will you be able to receive its benefits, as proceedings will not be published and no Press is allowed in the conference area. This is a closed forum in order to foster open discussion for the most benefit of all attendees.
Tuesday, March 2, will feature a one-day seminar sponsored by Aker Solutions on “Key Elements of Subsea Tiebacks (SURF)” to be conducted under the auspices of the Society of Underwater Technology. There is a separate cost to attend this seminar. The day-long event has four sessions plus an update on intelligent well interface standards. Session 1 schedules Bill Donlon, BHP Billiton, to set the scene with a deepwater activity forecast, facts and figures regarding tiebacks, issues and key components, as well as sample layouts. He will be followed by Brian Skeels, FMC Technologies, who will discuss system considerations, subsea completions, control systems, manifolds and tie-ins, and installation and workovers. In Session 3, umbilicals, risers, and flowlines will be the topics for Chuck Horn of Technip. He will be followed by Cory Loegering of Mariner Energy to discuss production handling agreements. After that, Don Schlater, BP Castrol, will talk about intelligent well interface standards and is scheduled to end with questions and answers.
The Opening Plenary Session starting at 08:00 on Wednesday has scheduled Owen Kratz, president and CEO of Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc., as keynote speaker. Kratz plans to address the issue of “Charting a Course Through a Troubled Economy” as his topic.
Following that, Don Vardeman, vice president of worldwide projects for Anadarko Petroleum Corp., is scheduled to make the scene-setting presentation to establish the industry context for the exhibitors and attendees.
After the Plenary, Session 1 opens by looking at innovative technology including Troll and Tordis, the loop currents that affected installation of Shenzi TLP hull and umbilical, and a review of ExxonMobil’s subsea deepwater alternating water/gas injection design and operation.
Reliability is the topic at Session 2. It will include a Minerals Management Service look at Gulf of Mexico HIPPS regulations, Statoil’s experience using direct electrical heated flowlines, and a discussion of how strong a HIPPS protected riser needs to be.
The last session of Day 1 looks at challenges and lessons learned in field development, Tahiti’s subsea equipment, the Longhorn subsea tieback to the Corral platform through a mine field, and the Frade subsea installation.
Thursday, March 4, opens with Session 4 on flowlines and risers. Lessons learned with a winch failure during riser pull-in at BC-10, the design of subsea hydrate remediation using an ROV-mounted hot water heater, and the design considerations accounted for in the Kizomba C flowline.
Case histories make up the presentations scheduled for Session 5. Canyon Express hydrate remediation and installation of a fifth well in a field designed for four wells are among the topics.
The last session before the recognition awards and chairman’s closing remarks from Jim Macklin of Helix Energy Solutions Group is a panel discussion on production facilities/concept selection with representatives from Granherne, Shell, Petrobras Americas, Petrobras, and Chevron talking about projects such as Perdido, Cascade/Chinook, Brazil’s pre-salt fields, and Agbami.
For more of the latest in information and schedule updates, or to register for the event, go online towww.SubseaTiebackForum.com.
