With almost 250% growth in the last decade, and very aggressive forecasts for future growth, floating production systems and associated technology are quickly becoming the choice of operators worldwide.
Prior to 1993, there were fewer than 50 floating production facilities in the world, and with the exception of a couple of tension-leg platforms (TLP) that made their appearance around 1984, the field was just about equally divided between floating production storage and offloading vessels (FPSO) and semisubmersible production platforms, most converted from drilling rigs.

But floating production has vaulted from a solution constrained to a few geographic areas to a rapidly-growing worldwide solution that has gained acceptance by most oil companies and governing authorities. Recent data provided by International Maritime Associates, Inc. (IMA) shows 247% growth of the floating production fleet over the past decade. (Fig. 1)

Spars, TLPs and FPSOs are the most rapidly growing sectors in that order. The number of semisubmersible production platforms has remained steady for the past few years. But one of the advantages for floating production systems is that in some cases they can be economically redeployed without excessive modifications. In fact, according to IMA, 14 successful redeployments have been implemented since 1998, and the association forecasts from 33% to 67% growth in redeployments over the next 5 years as units increasingly come off depleted fields.

It is the ability to sail away leaving no trace of their presence that is one of the strongest benefits of production floaters. Even though often a floating production facility is custom designed for the field it will produce, today's engineers are getting more innovative, building modular units with built-in scalability. They are actually planning in advance to make the units re-usable. And why not? With new production technology making increasingly steeper decline curves, even giant fields can be depleted in a few years, while there is still plenty of useful life left in the production facility.

Even the ill-fated Brent Spar was more of a public relations disaster than a real one. There is little doubt that Shell could have refurbished the facility for redeployment had it made economic sense at the time. But no one can argue the economics today. According to IMA, 37 new production floaters are on order - 26 FPSOs, five spars, four production semisubmersibles and two TLPs. Furthermore, between now and 2009, an additional 60 to 77 production floaters are forecast to be ordered, and up to 20 existing units will be modified and redeployed. Total capital expenditure for these orders is expected to total as much as US $25 billion.

If you are interested, the IMA has just completed an in-depth assessment of floating production, published in March, 2004. The report details more than 80 offshore projects for which floating production is a potential solution. You can learn more by visiting www.imastudies.com.

Production floaters are extremely versatile. They can support drilling or workover rigs and elaborate processing systems, or simply act as relay stations. They can offload through a pipeline or a buoy using shuttle tankers. They are equally suitable for producing through dry trees or from subsea fields. In fact, the newest design, Kerr-McGee's Red Hawk 3rd generation cell spar, will be moored about 3 miles (4.8 km) west of its field, Green Canyon 877, in order to leave the block free of structures to facilitate subsequent development drilling or rigless intervention. With fields now producing in waters more than a mile deep, the floating production solution has essentially become the only option. And its advantages translate to shallower waters as well, even in harsh environments.



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