JIM-REXLAWSON MOSES

As the world’s demand for oil increases, so does the search for more sources of oil by oil and gas companies – since hydrocarbons play a vital role in our life and continue to be important for many more years to come.

Depletion of onshore and shallow water fields has compelled oil companies to focus on deepwater areas where a combination of floating and subsea production units is used to extract hydrocarbons.

These companies are now drilling further into the sea and deeper under the ocean floor, at depths greater than 1000 feet to tap into one of the last remaining pockets of oil and natural gas in the world.

Deep water is a complex environment where there are no shortcuts to success and projects require long-term investment and commitment.

The trend toward ever deeper exploration—plus the technical and logistical challenges of operating in deep water— requires technologies that address the complexities of deepwater projects to reduce time to first oil and increase reservoir knowledge.

What exactly is deepwater/ offshore drilling?

Deepwater drilling is simply the process in oil and gas production and exploration which is carried out in water far away from the coastline.

In most cases, deepwater is considered at 1000 ft deep but more recently the industry focuses more on ultra deep waters of around 5,000 ft because oil and gas is situated in deeper ends of the ocean.

Though deepwater was once prohibitively expensive, high oil prices during 2007 and the first half of 2008 made the economics of deepwater drilling feasible.

Even in today’s changing times, the challenges of deep water continue to demand new and innovative technologies.

Offshore Production Facilities

In addition to the developing technologies for exploration and production of oil and natural gas, new concepts in deepwater systems and facilities have emerged to make ultra-deepwater projects a reality.

With wells being drilled in water depths of 10,000 feet, the traditional fixed offshore platform is being replaced by state-of-the-art deepwater production facilities.

Compliant Towers, Tension Leg Platforms, Spars, Subsea Systems, Floating Production Systems, Storage & Offloading Systems are now being used in water depths exceeding 1,500 feet. All of these systems are proven technology, and in use in offshore production worldwide.

Advances in technology have transformed the exploration and production business. In addition to increasing efficiency, these innovations generate significant environmental benefits.

Technology assures that exploration and production can be conducted in harmony with environmental protection.

With the aid of technology, there has been an increment in the success rate of deepwater drilling. With the discovery of the 3-D seismic data, surveys appear to be much more precise.

In as much as the technology is very expensive, it records around 90% success rate. However it is important to note that these technologies save costs and are highly efficient.

They also guarantee overall improvement of oil and gas recovery systems, improve NPV’s, reduce surface production facility costs, boost production rates and most importantly- reduce gas hydrate formation in flow lines.

How to decide where to drill offshore oil and gas wells:

When it comes to deciding where to drill an offshore oil or gas well, it is imperative to look at a variety of information and then make an “informed guess” on where the best spot might be to begin drilling.

First, an oil company should hire a survey boat (seismic survey vessel) to scan underneath the sea floor to look at the various rock and sediment formations in the ground.

Scientists on the survey boat fire sound waves from a “gun” towed several miles behind the boat. The sound waves reflect off the various layers of ground underneath the sea bed and echo back to the survey boat.

High tech computers on board the survey boat are able to turn these reflected sound waves into an image showing the various features of the earth directly below.

Geologists who specialize in identifying oil and gas look at these images to see if there are any areas where oil might be present.

As this technology has improved over the years, survey boats are able to create 3-D images of the ground which has significantly improved the geologists’ ability to identify potential oil deposits.