SS: Thunder Horse and Atlantis Deepwater Frontier Developments in the Gulf of Mexico: Thunder Horse and Atlantis: The Development of Twin Giants in the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

Abstract Since their discovery in the late 1990s, Thunder Horse and Atlantis have shared many aspects of the journey from development concept to production operations. These include significant project challenges in subsea and topsides, substantial preparation for production operations, and resounding success during production ramp-up and early operations. This paper will outline some of the similarities and key differences between the two, and emphasize the shared ingredients for success despite the frontier environment of the fields. Thunder Horse and Atlantis are both giant oil and gas fields and together produce more than 400 mboed, about 10% of BP's global production and about 6% of the U.S.'s oil production, producing through semi-submersible facilities that are respectively the biggest and the deepest moored in the world. Despite the frontier nature of the developments, and several major challenges encountered and shared by the two projects, both have been delivered and are performing at world class levels of efficiency, with long sustained futures ahead of them. The experience of the journey of these twin giants from discovery to world class operating assets holds several key lessons for megaprojects of the future, particularly in the challenging conditions of deep water. Introduction Every prolific hydrocarbon province in the world has at its core one or more giant oil/gas fields that form a substantial component of its discovered and developed resources, and which represent many of the challenges faced by that province as a whole. Meeting those technical and commercial challenges for the giant fields often opens the door to further development of the province and fairways. So it is in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (DW GoM). Arguably, the Mars discovery was the giant find of Round 1 exploration in the DW GoM during the late 1980s. A decade later, Thunder Horse and Atlantis were two of the largest Round 2 exploration discoveries, and together presented some new challenges in deeper water and more complex subsurface conditions than anything previously encountered (Figure 1). At the time of discovery both fields were characterized by promising reservoirs that were " wrapped?? in environmental conditions for which no technical solution yet existed. For Thunder Horse this centered on the pressure, temperature and corrosivity of the reservoir fluids, while Atlantis faced the subsurface image of the reservoir and the extreme water depth. This article will outline how those challenges were met, and how, more than that, both developments have commenced their operations with world class efficiency and performance.