New Offshore Platform Pushes Technologies to Their Limit
In the Gulf of Mexico, in underwater terrain akin to a mountain range in waters reaching 10,000 ft deep, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell plc, its partners and an extensive team of contractors are setting records for ultradeep oil and gas engineering, construction and development. At 7,817 ft, the Perdido project will be the deepest spar platform in the world as well as the deepest drilling and production facility. It also will have the deepest producing subsea well, at 9,627 ft, and will deploy the first commercial-scale subsea oil-and-gas separation plant.
Little of the technology for the multi-billion-dollar project is new, but Shell’s team is stretching conventional production and processing technology to its limits to keep costs down: San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron U.S.A. has a 37.5% interest, Shell a 35% interest and London-based BP plc a 27.5% interest.