Optimal sea floor placement of the oil/gas production equipment

Abstract

In the construction designing of oil field surface facilities, exists a problem of the seabed production equipment optimal placement. As an initial approximation, we can represent this task in the form of the linear Boolean programming problem. An application of routine methods of discrete programming can theoretically give the desired solution. However, these methods do not take into account the specific nature of the problem. This problem belongs to the NP class. So we can run into significant computational difficulties. This situation is typical for construction of the ground surface or subsea located facilities for real oil/gas fields. To overcome it, we propose to replace a discrete programming model with a linear programming one, which takes into account problem-specific properties. Also, we present examples of the application of the proposed parallel optimization algorithms. Input data for them: the seabed profile, geometry, and space distribution of oil/gas reserves. Optimization problem objective function is the penalty for the irrational placement of seabed production equipment elements.