Abstract
An oil field located 180 miles South of New Orleans (typical deepwater field, Gulf of Mexico) has been producing since 2005 and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation joined the project in early 2007. During the past 4 years, certain topics and lessons learned have been identified through development studies, drilling and workover operations, subsea production and other activities.
Despite deepwater development progress since ca. 1990, operational difficulties resulting in high CAPEX and high OPEX costs have been experienced. This is partly due to limited access to subsea production systems. Nevertheless, because of economic feasibility, further deep water development will continue.
In this paper, typical issues, lessons learned, etc. associated with the deepwater setting are reported. The intent is to share findings for interested parties and engineers about deepwater field development.
