Chris Barton (Wood) announced that global upstream capex is estimated at $572 billion for 2023, a 13% hike year-on-year. Offshore capex is up 17% to $178 billion, heralding ‘the return of exploration’. Investment levels are now roughly the same as pre-covid, although well down on 2014. South America and the Middle East currently receive the lions share of offshore investment. Barton concluded that deepwater activity is ramping up again and ‘some good years are to be expected’. As ever, sharing the spoils between operators and contractors is a source of ‘natural conflict’ and the severe economic cycles have made the operator/contractor equilibrium ‘fragile’. Operators should think of their contractors as a ‘source of strategic advantage’. Rather than playing the field, operators need to deepen their relationships with contractors to ‘create a mindset where they jointly plan their futures together*’.
* We have heard similar sentiments expressed many times by geophysical contractors. They were never very persuasive.
Robert Cousins presented Baker Hughes’ Engage Subsea platform, a digital single source of truth for subsea operations. ES connects to multiple primary data sources (SAP, Oracle, OPC UA and more) feeding apps through a service layer and digital twin. The solution covers asset health, integrity monitoring, remote workflows and robotics. The system benefits day-to-day operations and supports decarbonization and emissions reduction efforts.
Thierry Boscals de Real presented TotalEnergies target for net zero by 2050. Oil production is to peak in 2025, gas (the transition fuel) is rising steeply through 2030. Green energy is set for a significant, if more modest hike by 2030. One contribution to TotalEnergies’ greening offshore is its ZerEm (zero carbon emissions assets) project. This addresses the scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions from exploration and production. ZerEm in the offshore includes exhaust gas sequestration from compressors, wave and well heat energy recovery and the integration of GHG calculations in production forecasts
Burkhard Sommer from SLB’s One Subsea unit presented on all-electric connectivity for super long offset tie-backs. In the North Sea, ‘super long’ can mean as much as 250km as offshore fields are effectively operated from the shore. In the Eastern Mediterranean this may mean 400km offsets in the (up to) 2500m water depths of Europe’s future gas hub. Long offset electricals mean less infrastructure, less CO2 and a lower environmental impact. Optimizing the ‘power cord’ is key – leveraging high voltage DC systems. Comms can be achieved with fiber or satellite, possibly using low power wave or solar generation. The latter are described as a ‘perfect match’ for decentralized systems such as CCS.
On the topic of electricity, Jerome Anfray (TotalEnergies) and Nicolas Congar (Sofresid) presented an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power system for subsea electricity generation. These are typically used in industry to generate electricity from waste heat in flue gasses and other sources. In a deepwater context, the temperature difference between hot well fluids and cold seawater could be used to power an ORC. Systems are limited to higher temperature (>100°C) wells and are capable of powering applications (well head command, chemical injection, subsea processing) using power in the 100kw to 1mw range. The systems are currently at ‘low maturity’ and the speakers called for contractors and operators to work together on this and other ‘net zero’ solutions.
Kevin Kappes and Kaitlin Haymaker (both with OneSubsea) presented on the merits of the IOGP’s JIP33 standardized approach to subsea production. The idea is to strike a balance between idiosyncratic operator specs and ‘over-restrictive’ standards. The JIP33’s configurable standards approach is said to square the circle and deliver ‘subsea performance agility’. Curiously, the IOGP’s companion spec Cfihos from the JIP 36 did not get a mention.
David Saul (ExxonMobil) and Ryan Gola (BP)
introduced the embryonic IOGP CCS committee. This has set up a CCS
Expert Group and established terms of reference. These include work on
CCS regulations and guidance for operators. More from IOGP.
Eirik Walle presented ClampOn’s eponymous ‘non-intrusive’ flow temperature meter and showed how the ingenious device has been calibrated using Dassault Systems’ SolidWorks simulator. ClampOn uses sensitive temperature variations on the pipe wall to figure fluid temperature inside the pipe. The system has been installed as a mod to ClampOn’s pig detector.
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