SHELL has achieved first commercial production from its Perdido development, the world’s deepest offshore drilling and production facility.
Located in an isolated, ultra-deep sector of the Gulf of Mexico, the Perdido oil&gas development is said to mark a new era in innovation, and safely unlocks domestic sources of energy for US consumers.
The production facility sits in about 2,450m (8,000ft) of water, which is roughly equivalent to six Empire State Buildings stacked one atop the other.
Indeed, Perdido smashes the world water-depth record for an offshore platform by more than 50%.
“Shell designed and operated, the Perdido host spar, a floating production facility, is jointly owned by Shell (35%), Chevron (37.5%) and BP (27.5%).
The facility will produce from the Great White, Silvertip and Tobago offshore fields, requiring perhaps as many as 35 wells over the life of the assets.
Tobago sits in more than 2,900m (9,600ft) of water and surpasses the world depth record for a completed subsea well. In addition, all Perdido subsea fields will utilise a unique an innovative subsea separation and boosting system to enable oil and natural gas recovery.
Perdido is expected to ramp up to a peak production level of more than 100,000 barrels oil equivalent per day.
This is the first commercial production from the Lower Tertiary achieved, to date, in the Gulf of Mexico.
Because of the low pressure and temperature of the fields, Shell has installed an innovative subsea separation and boosting system that can lower back pressure on the wells by about 2,000psi (pounds per square inch).
It features the first wet tree direct vertical access (DVA) wells in water more than 2km (1.2 miles) deep.
The Great White field represents about 80% of Perdido’s total estimated production, and project life is expected to be about 20 years
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