Transforming offshore field developments with Pivotree™: an innovative technology solution for fast, cost effective, and low footprint projects

Abstract

Pivotree™ represents a technology paradigm shift in offshore oil field development, reducing cost and providing a route to market for the operators of stranded resources. Conventional standalone projects, characterised by substantial upfront capital expenditures with complex equipment and high installation costs, are juxtaposed against the Pivotree™ solution, with a markedly reduced capital outlay that retains all the requisite safety and operational features associated with larger systems. A comparative study of activities, materials, and risks concomitant with different field development concepts are analysed for a range of reservoir characteristics, highlighting the financial advantages of the Pivotree™ technology using Multiple-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). MCDA allows a systematic assessment and comparison of a broad spectrum of qualitative factors including safety, environmental impact, operability, maintainability, time to deploy, water depth, independence, and abandonment burden and development of a set of economic scenarios with the costs of different development concepts compared over the lifecycle phases from Drilling to Abandonment, and the Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) calculated against a range of oil prices, and operating expenditures. A case study ‘Concept Select’ activity is performed using MCDA to evaluate the range of development options against the listed set of project and technology attributes. A set of weightings is provided for the purpose of analysis by the author equating to the corporate values and strategy of a fictional energy company. The MCDA analysis demonstrates that the Pivotree™ technology can unlock production from the global store of stranded offshore discovered resources.