Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - shell

The last day of the Rio O&G conference began with an early morning presentation on the possible uses of Nanotechnology for O&G exploration and advanced oil recovery. The sector, with the support of IBP (Brazilian Petroleum Institute) has been working on a Nano Agent capable of increasing the average oil recovery by 20%. According to Rustom Mody, Vice-Presidente of Technology at Baker Hughes, presently 60% of nanotechnology patents are from the U.S. and Canada and the number of patents has greatly increased in the last 10 years, with the market experiencing a major growth since 2009. The market presently involves values of over US$ 9 billion, up from the US$ 4,5 billion of 5 years ago.

The latest edition of the Rio O&G 2014 Expo and Conference is easily the biggest installment ever of the largest O&G event in Latin America. Many foreign participants were saying that it was the one of biggest even they’ve seen anywhere and also one of the most well organized. Praises were also lavishly handed out to the quality of the technical presentations, lectures, panels and digital poster sessions. Important developments for the industry have also been announced during the event, such as the news that Brazil’s thirteenth bidding round will take place in the first semester of 2015 and Shell’s Executive Vice President Mark Shuster’s much commented speech…

The auction of Libra pre-salt field, forecast to contain between 8 and 12 billion barrels boe in recoverable reserves, was Brazil's first bidding round in the pre-salt area, and failed to meet the high expectations placed on it by the Brazilian government, yet the government, the ANP (National Oil Regulator) and Petrobras are highly satisfied with the results because they managed to attract important and experienced partners in Shell and Total, along with the high rolling Chinese companies. Despite a nine-month global publicity campaign and predictions of fervent bidding by as many as 40 firms, the license was awarded to the only consortium to register a bid. Another controversial state controlled company PPSA will oversee the contract’s implementation, having both voting and veto rights.

The hull of Shell's Prelude was floated in South Korea. When construction is complete, Prelude will be the largest floating facility ever created, weighing more than 600 thousand tons. It will be moored off Northwest Australia for natural gas production at Shell’s Prelude field beginning in 2017, and will operate for 25 years off Australia. The area where the Prelude FLNG will operate at the Browse Basin has a yearly cyclone season from November to April, but the Prelude has been designed to withstand such conditions. It is hoped the facility will be able to produce enough gas to power a medium sized city. The Prelude FLNG cannot strictly be described as a ship as it needs to be towed to its destination rather than travelling under its own power.

Last Month the DOF Group named on the largest anchor handling tug vessel (AHT) ever built in Brazil, the Skandi Iguaçu. The vessel has over 32,000 BHP installed and bollard pull of more than 300 tons. Having been built at the STX OSV shipyard accros the bridge from the city of Rio de Janeiro, in Niteroi, the vessel will be ready for delivery to Petrobras three to five months in advance of contract requirement. Skandi Iguacu was ordered from STX OSV shipyard, with financing from the Brazilian Merchant Marine Fund through the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank). The Skandi Iguaçu is part of a new generation of high powered anchor handling vessels, designed for operations across a wide range of deepwater depths and environmental conditions.

Barra Energia do Brasil Petróleo e Gás Ltda or Barra Energia was established in 2010 as an independent O&G exploration and production company. Its headquarters is in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, close to all the main O&G Basins in Brazil and where all other players working the Brazilian offshore are based. The company was launched by executives, engineers and geologists that with long career histories in the O&G business, most hailing from super-majors like Petrobras and also from Repsol. The company advertises its main competitive edge as being its technical and commercial expertise and local knowledge. Barra Energia is counting on this expertise to guide them in their E&P efforts which will primarily focus on the three major offshore O&G areas in Brazil…

The increase in exploratory O&G programs around the world and specifically the deepwater exploration programs being undertaken at the GOM, in West Africa and Brazil has caused major improvements and new technologies and materials to be employed in subsea equipment, such as BOPs, wellhead systems, risers, manifolds, flowlines, drilling fluids among others. GE´s VetcoGray has developed an interesting seal technology for its subsea wellheads. Named MS seal, it is based on Metal-to-metal sealing technology. All VetcoGray subsea wellheads use metal-to-metal sealing technology, which is superior to elastomer options because it prevents inevitable heat and corrosive fluids from damaging seal integrity. Both the wellhead and hanger have a sealing area of parallel wickers.

Abrolhos is short for open your eyes in Portuguese, an expression meaning beware, often used by Portuguese navigators when naming islands flanked by dangerous reefs. There is even a group of islands going by the same name along the west coast of OZ. Not only do these two places (In Brazil and Australia) have a name in common but both are also pristine islands officially protected as ecological preserves by the countries they belong to. Both are also flanked by major Oil & Gas E&P areas. The Brazilian Abrolhos is a whale haven and contains a wonderful yet fragile flora and fauna ecosystem, both on land and underwater. The place is thought to be one of the world´s coral matrixes…

New discoveries and the development of deepwater and ultra-deepwater pre-salt increases the demand for subsea equipment and service providers, attracting various international and local companies to compete for subsea contracts for the Brazilian offshore.The deepwater scene is in full swing in Brazil, with major projects being developed by various operators and national operator Petrobras. All these projects require a multitude of subsea equipment and subsea services, which accounted for a steady growth in subsea equipment and service providers from around the world setting shop in Brazil. Companies that have a history of quality equipment and services usually have an advantage when disputing these contracts, but the final product and services price is also a major issue.

Petrobras, Brazil´s National operator hás recently disclosed new local and international O&G discoveries. The discoveries in Brazil are all in deepwater. In the Espírito Santo Basin the hydrocarbon accumulations were found in the Cretaceous reservoirs of a well known as Brigadeiro, down at 1,900 meters and located within the BM-ES-23 concession area in Block ES-M-525, 115 km off the coast of the State of Espírito Santo in southeast Brazil. This new deepwaterdiscovery at the very promising Espirito Santo Basin, was confirmed through wireline logging and fluid sampling, in t reservoirs located at around 4,200 meters.Petrobras is the operator of block BM-ES-23 (65%), which is also composed of Shell Brasil Petróleo (20%) and Inpex Petróleo Santos (15%).

Subsea gas-liquid separation coupled with liquid boosting can be an effective means of oil reservoir exploitation. Despite advances, multiphase pumping technology remains limited in its capabilities. Dynamic (centrifugal and helico-axial) pumps function with reasonable efficiency for single-phase, low-viscosity liquids. However, they become very inefficient when a high-viscosity liquid is combined with high percentages of free gas. While use of multiphase pumps is in many instances an effective solution, special consideration must be taken when challenging conditions exist such as are found in deeper water or with long tieback distances, or when heavy-oil production is involved. More effective oil reservoir exploitation can be achieved using subsea separation coupled with liquid boosting.