Shell has identified several key areas of technology for continued focus as it progresses its deepwater exploration and development activity, with seismic and subsurface advances in particular flagged up for special mention.

Robert Patterson, the Anglo-Dutch major’s vice president for projects and engineering, told DI at a briefing in London that the key technologies include on-bottom seismic and subsurface imaging, already used successfully in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM).

Patterson said, “One of the key enablers in technology in trying to find and prove our hydrocarbon resources is advanced seismic. Key to unlocking the subsea fields that are part of the Mars B development (in the GoM) is the use of on-bottom seismic and wide azimuth sensing. Those technologies put together with some proprietary imaging capability allowed us to see things we could not see before.

“In that basin, not far from where we found West Boreas, we actually had an unsuccessful well and thought that that area was dry. With the added ability to image the subsurface, we were able to see where the hydrocarbons really were and unlock West Boreas, which is what we were able to bring onstream first in the Mars B development. It was a critical part of moving ahead with that project.”

Patterson also said other emphasis areas will be HP/HT reservoirs, as well as how to boost recovery from low pressure reservoirs.

He also mentioned Shell’s Bully I and II drillships, built in joint venture with Noble Drilling, as being key to its success on Mars B and BC-10 (Brazil). The design is significantly smaller than similar-class drilling rigs and burns about 30% less fuel for the same activities as existing drilling rigs, he said. “It doesn’t have a typical lattice derrick. It has a multipurpose tower instead that allows for efficient pipe handling and other activities that improve the overall effectiveness of the rig.

“The Bully I won rig of the year in the Shell fleet in its maiden period, while the Bully II in Brazil had four of its first six wells come in as the best in class wells in Brazil.”

Like every other operator, it seems, standardization of subsea equipment is also becoming a key focus for the company as it looks to push ahead with its portfolio of deepwater projects worldwide.

“We have been using standard solutions that will fit most of our portfolio. We are getting a 20% saving relative to customised solutions by using the standardization approach. That’s just buying the hardware. Because we have standard solutions, we can now pre-invest in equipment. When we pre-invest, it allows our subsea projects to be executed anywhere from six to 12 months faster than what the industry is able to do right now.”

Patterson said the approach also gave Shell the ability to capture opportunities that it might not otherwise have been able to. The best example of that, he said, was the redevelopment of Brazil’s deepwater Bijupirá/Salema fields.

“An opportunity came up where we had a drilling rig available to us in Brazil and a promising area to develop in the existing development. We needed subsea trees to be available when the rig was available and we didn’t have any on order or planned for that opportunity. Because we used standard kit we were able to take two trees that were scheduled for projects in the Gulf of Mexico and one tree that was scheduled for a project in the Far East, and bring those to Brazil and enable an opportunity that would not otherwise have existed, and could not have been done without a global approach to standardization.”

Offshore