Deepwater Development Strategy

Abstract

Abstract The risks and uncertainties related to deepwater oil and gas reservoirs, development concepts, lifecycle reservoir management and ultimate production continue to increase substantially as the oil and gas industry pushes into deeper water, more complex environments and frontier unproduced plays/areas. Given the technical and non-technical risks related to these developments, it is more important than ever to integrate and align stakeholder expectations and the view of project risks by agreeing on the overall field development strategy early in the project maturation cycle. This paper details the importance of defining early in the project maturation process the overall field development strategy which encompasses project phasing, the reservoir development approach and the application/deployment of new technology. A framework is proposed as a starting point in setting the development strategy based on both project complexity and overall schedule drivers.