Two projects aiming to develop small unmanned production facilities for use on marginal fields have been given a boost.
Unmanned Production Buoy (UPB), based in Banchory, near Aberdeen, has signed a memorandum of understanding with engineering firm AMEC to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management and support services.
This would cover UPB’s first three unmanned oil production platforms, which are being designed to serve six oil fields offshore northwest Europe at a total cost of about US$1.2 billion.
The second development has seen exploration firm Enegi Oil sign an agreement with UK-based engineering firm GMC to expand buoyant production technology it is developing through ABT Oil & Gas (ABTOG), a partnership between Enegi and ABTechnology.
UPB’s project would see its technology used to redevelop the decommissioned Angus and Fife fields in the UK central North Sea, formerly operated by Hess. These were awarded to UPB, along with the Fergus and Flora fields, in UK’s 27th offshore license round.
UPB has said it expects the first commercial units to come onstream in 2016, with the first three units deployed on fields offshore the UK, Ireland, and Denmark.
The UPB system, designed to be reusable, is targeted at marginal offshore oil fields with recoverable reserves of 2-15 MMbbl.
The system expands on the concept of an unmanned buoy, currently used offshore for utilities, power generation, and control of remote wells, by adding processing and hydrocarbon storage.
These capabilities are based on proven technologies used onshore, to create a production system claimed to be economic for offshore fields with daily production rates of less than 5000bbl/d.
ABTOG and GMC will work on a similar type of system, comprising a self-installing, buoyant offshore platform, with various elements of functionality, including production systems and drilling equipment.
This would be complementary to ABT’s production buoy technology, says Enegi. The production platform, like the buoy, would be scalable, re-deployable, and can be unmanned, reducing capital and operational costs of an offshore oil and gas development.
GMC has already helped develop and build a self-installing, buoyant offshore platform—it was involved in the recent design and deployment of the CX15 buoyant tower for the Corvina field in Peru.
Earlier this year, Enegi said it had agreed with ABTechnology it would prepare a field development plan for the UK North Sea Fyne field based on the use of a production buoy facility. Wood Group PSN, which formed a partnership with ABT in 2011 to commercialise unmanned production buoy technology, was contracted to carry out pre-front end engineering and design (FEED) and FEED studies for the field development plan.
As part of the agreement with GMC, the technology will be commercially developed through ABTOG, with Stephen Baird appointed as chief executive officer.
Baird was vice president of special projects at Heritage Oil before setting up Sea Dragon Offshore, where he was chairman and chief executive. Sea Dragon owned and operated two sixth generation semi-submersibles.
Since 2009 he has been running Hicog (Heavy Industry-Construction Oil and Gas), which makes and manages a range of PE and PIPE investments, as well as provides executive level consultancy and leadership services.
GMC was founded in 1990 and is based in Reading with offices in Aberdeen, Houston, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing and Singapore.
Image: ABT's semisubmersible buoy technology.
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