Shell starts production at Perdido

Shell has produced its first oil and natural gas from the Perdido development, the world’s deepest offshore drilling and production facility.

World’s deepest offshore platform

Located in an isolated, ultra deep sector of the Gulf of Mexico, Perdido marks a new era in innovation and safely unlocks domestic sources of energy for US consumers. The facility sits in approximately 2450 m (8000 ft) of water, which is roughly equivalent to six Empire State Buildings stacked one on top of the other, and will access reservoirs deep beneath the ocean floor. Perdido smashes the world water depth record for an offshore platform by more than 50%.

Production from three offshore fields

Shell designed, and operates, the Perdido host spar, a floating production facility, which 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 fields.  Tobago sits in more than 2900 m (9600 ft) 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. The Perdido development will ramp up to annual peak production of more than 100 000 bpd of oil equivalent.

Further exploration success

Also in the Gulf of Mexico, Shell recently announced another deepwater discovery at Appomattox, which is in addition to recent exploration success at West Boreas, Vito, and Stones. These discoveries underpin the potential for four new production hubs.

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/exploration/06042010/shell_starts_production_at_perdido/