Artificial Islands vs. Wellhead Towers: Search for Optimized Infrastructure for Shallow-Water Developments

Abstract

This paper describes how a multidiscipline project team incorporated artificial islands with wellhead towers (WHTs) to develop an optimized drilling scenario reaching several hundred proposed drilling targets. As part of an economic optimization plan for a field in shallow waters, a project was undertaken to explore a means of taking advantage of artificial islands to reduce field development time, costs, and potential risks. The team collaborated with multiple stakeholders to identify the fundamental objectives of the field development project. Advanced planning and visualization software made it possible to analyze various combinations of wellhead towers and artificial islands and their surface locations, with each combination representing a different drilling scenario. Each scenario was then evaluated based on four criteria: technical feasibility of well construction, total development cost, total time for development, and degree of potential risk. This paper focuses on the methodology applied for this project, and results discussed are limited to two randomly selected scenarios and do not reflect the complete results of the numerous scenarios evaluated in this study, nor do they reflect any decisions made as a result of this study. The results of the analysis demonstrated that the level of feasibility and potential risk varied greatly depending on the scenario chosen, which led to a potential project cost difference of more than several hundred million USD. Collaborative planning among all stakeholders allowed the analysis of the various development scenarios to be completed on time and on budget with fundamental objectives met.