Functions of a Production Platform

Oil platforms are an industrial town at sea, carrying the personnel and equipment needed for continuous hydrocarbon production. The most important functions are drilling, preparing water or gas for injection into the reservoir, processing the oil and gas before sending it ashore, and cleaning the produced water for disposal into the sea. Power is generated on the platform to drive production equipment and support life. All production systems are constantly monitored for leaks, since oil and gas are hazardous and extremely flammable.

The top of each production well sprouts a branching series of pipes, gauges and valves called the 'Christmas tree' (see F97, page 55). At this point, crude oil is a hot, frothy, corrosive, high-pressure fluid containing gas, water and sand. After separation, the crude oil is metered and pumped into the pipeline, or stored until sent ashore by tanker. The gas separated from the oil may be used for fuel, or compressed and piped to shore or re-injected into the reservoir. Any gas that cannot be used or piped ashore must be burnt in the platform's flare. Very little gas is now flared. Processing systems for the gasfields of the southern North Sea are relatively simple. Any liquids dissolved in the gas are removed, then the gas is compressed, cooled, dehydrated and metered before being piped to shore. Production Platforms Most oil and gas production platforms in offshore Britain rest on steel supports known as 'jackets', a term derived from the Gulf of Mexico. A small number of platforms are fabricated from concrete. The steel jacket, fabricated from welded pipe, is pinned to the sea floor with steel piles. Above it are prefabricated units or modules providing accommodation and housing various facilities including gas turbine generating sets. Towering above the modules are the drilling rig derrick (two on some platforms), the flare stack in some designs (also frequently cantilevered outwards) and service cranes. Horizontal surfaces are taken up by store areas, drilling pipe deck and the vital helicopter pad. Concrete gravity platforms are so-called because their great weight holds them firmly on the seabed. They were first developed to provide storage capacity in oilfields where tankers were used to transport oil, and to eliminate the need for piling in hard seabeds. The Brent D platform (F87), which weighs more than 200 000 tonnes, was designed to store over a million barrels of oil. But steel platforms, in which there have been design advances, are now favoured over concrete ones.

Several platforms may have to be installed to exploit the larger fields, but where the capacity of an existing platform permits, subsea collecting systems linked to it by pipelines have been developed using the most modern technology. They will be increasingly used as smaller fields are developed. For very deep waters, one solution was the Hutton Tension Leg Platform: the buoyant platform, resembling a huge drilling rig, is tethered to the sea-bed by jointed legs kept in tension by computer-controlled ballast adjustments. Alternatively, a subsea collection system may be linked via a production riser to a Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FSPO) vessel (F88); either a purpose built ship or a converted tanker or semisubmersible rig. The oil is offloaded by a shuttle tanker.

Currently under fabrication for ATPs U.K. North Sea Cheviot field development is the Octabuoy Dry Tree semi-submersible production platform. The Octabuoy, a dry-tree completion unit, can accommodate both production facilities and a complete drilling/work-over rig, allows for fabrication and installation flexibility, provides oil storage in the columns and is expected to be more cost effective than other dry-tree floating production units. The unique feature of the

Octabuoy is the shape of the columns, which provides more favorable motion characteristics than other floating structures for dry-tree oil and gas production.

In 2007, due to lack of nearby accessible infrastructure near ATPs Telemark Hub project, ATP decided to utilize a self contained floating drilling and production triple-column spar structure. This is the first hull configuration of this kind. This versatile deepwater operating concept, comprised of three columns linked by pontoons, offers higher variable load capacity and enhanced stability over traditional single-hulled spars.

So, as one moves further offshore, then one might use a self-erecting tender from a barge, but would more likely move to something which could get the drilling floor stabilized and up above the waves. These are the jack-up rigs.

Model of a jack-up rock (Stavanger Oil Museum) Typically they have three legs, that are raised as the rig moves around. Then when it has reached the desired site, the legs are lowered to rest on the sea floor and the entire structure jacks itself up out of the sea, and, hopefully, above the waves. (You can get apaper model to cut out and assemble for this rig). There is also ananimated video showing the installation of a rig at a site. They can do this to work in depths to around 500 ft. The discussion about damaged rigs gave links to the different rigs that have been damaged, and some of these have photos of the rigs in better days. As one goes out to deeper depths, then one will look for a more substantial vessel and so one comes to the Semi-submersible.

Semi-submersible drilling rig (Stavenger Oil Museum) These are built to either sail themselves, or to be towed out to the site, with the assembly floating, and then fluid is pumped into the bottom tanks to partially submerge the vessel and thus stabilize it. One can get some idea of the size of these from some of the photos shown where, (thanks to Ed Ames), wikipedia covers the subject.

Semi-submersible rig off Brazil (Wikipedia) Since these are floating there has to be a way of holding them in place. One way is to have them dynamically positioned, usingthrusters to hold them in position, such as these.

Thrusters that go under the pontoons to stabilize a semi-submersible (Wartsila) Note that it takes about 3 years to build such a unit. The alternative is to have the rig attached to anchors on the sea bed using cables, or tethers. (And for those interested in natural gas production, note that the same rigs are used for both).

Cables with controlled winches to stabilize a semisubmersible rig (Stavanger Oil Museum) The connection between the well and the platform now becomes more flexible and special connecting pipes called risers are designed to reach from the blow-out preventer (BOP) at the top of the well, but on the seabed, and the platform. These must allow the rig to rise and fall with the tides and so models of behavior have to be written to design ways of allowing this. An alternative is to use a drillship to do the exploration. The drillship has the rig mounted in the middle of the ship, and can thus move around somewhat more easily than the others. It is generally held in position by dynamic positioning while drilling. (Video here).

Drill ship (Stavanger Oil Museum) Once the field has been established, then a larger production platform can be brought out and placed where it can, using directional drilling, reach the best places to extract oil from the field. It is these large structures, such as that the Orlan platformfrom which Sakhalin Island oil finally began to flow recently, or the Thunder Horse, or Mars platforms. Although the former was due to produce by 2005, it was delayed by damage from Dennis and did not get up into major production until the end of last year, while the Mars platform was extensively damaged by Katrina. it is now back in production. One of the problems with using these large platforms for Deepwater recovery is that they focus collection and so when these two are disabled, for example, they take about 400,000 bd out of production. And once they are damaged they are not so easily replaced. Back when I first wrote on this subject, in 2005demand for rigs so strong that, as the International Herald Tribune reported