Qualification and Development of the World's First High Pressure Subsea Boosting System for the Jack and St. Malo Field Development

Published: 05/01/2017

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Schlumberger Oilfield Services

The Jack and St. Malo fields were developed in a deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GoM) setting by Chevron and co-owners and commenced production in 2014. The reservoirs are located roughly 25 miles apart, about 250 miles southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana. Water depths in both fields are around 7,000 feet, and the reservoirs lie approximately five miles below the water surface. The Jack and St. Malo fields were developed with subsea completions flowing back to the Walker Ridge Regional Platform, the largest, by displacement, semi-submersible floating production unit (FPU) in the GoM. The Lower Tertiary trend (LTT) in the GoM poses a number of documented challenges for flowing reservoir fluid from the sand face to surface facility. The key challenges are related to low permeability, high pressures, high temperatures, as well as water and well depths. The naturally high pressures driving Jack and St. Malo fields during the early stages of development will decrease over time as the fields are produced. To compensate and maintain production levels, it was decided to deploy three powerful subsea pumping systems on the seabed to boost fluids from the wells to the host platform. While a number of subsea boosting systems have been deployed over the years, the Jack and St. Malo fields required technology qualification in order to meet design requirements in terms of water depth, pressure rating and shaft power. This paper will describe the technology qualification program of the world's first high pressure seabed boosting system, as well as the subsequent delivery project and deployment of three subsea boosting systems in the Jack and St. Malo fields. An overview of the drivers for selecting this technology will be provided, as well as insight into early operational experience from the field.

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