Gulf of Mexico Offshore Field Development Projects

Offshore fields today are found in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Campos and Santos Basins off the coasts of Brazil, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (Atlantic Canada), several fields off West Africa most notably west of Nigeria and Angola, as well as offshore fields in South East Asia and Sakhalin, Russia. Also major offshore oil fields are located in the Persian Gulf such as Safaniya, Manifa, and Marjan which belong to Saudi Arabia and are developed by Saudi Aramco.

Offshore oil and gas production is more challenging than land-based installations due to the remote and harsher environment. Much of the innovation in the offshore petroleum sector concerns overcoming these challenges, including the need to provide very large production facilities. Production and drilling facilities may be very large and a large investment, such as the Troll A platform standing on a depth of 300 meters.

Another type of offshore platform may float with a mooring system to maintain it on location. While a floating system may be lower cost in deeper waters than a fixed platform, the dynamic nature of the platforms introduces many challenges for the drilling and production facilities.

The ocean can add several hundred meters or more to the fluid column. The addition increases the equivalent circulating density and downhole pressures in drilling wells, as well as the energy needed to lift produced fluids for separation on the platform.

The trend today is to conduct more of the production operations subsea, by separating water from oil and re-injecting it rather than pumping it up to a platform, or by flowing to onshore, with no installations visible above the sea. Subsea installations help to exploit resources at progressively deeper waters, locations which have been inaccessible, and overcome challenges posed by sea ice, such as in the Barents Sea.

PROJECT	FIELD	FIELD STATUS	DEPTH
Clipper	Clipper	Under Development	1,052 m / 3,472 ft

Telemark	Morgus	Under Development	1,312 m / 4,330 ft

Auger	Ozona Deep	Under Development	1,000 m / 3,300 ft

Tubular Bells	Tubular Bells	Under Development	1,311 m / 4,326 ft

Pyrenees Discovery	Pyrenees	Under Development	640 m / 2,112 ft

Jack/St. Malo	Jack	Under Development	2,134 m / 7,042 ft

Jack/St. Malo	St. Malo	Under Development	640 m / 2,112 ft

West Boreas	West Boreas	Under Development	943 m / 3,112 ft

Who Dat	Who Dat	Under Development	914 m / 3,016 ft

Mars	Deimos South	Under Development	946 m / 3,122 ft

Pompano	MC 72	Under Development	614 m / 2,026 ft

Big Foot	Big Foot	Under Development	1,524 m / 5,029 ft

Na Kika	Isabela	Under Development	1,981 m / 6,537 ft

Na Kika	Santa Cruz	Under Development	1,981 m / 6,537 ft

The Greater Chinook Area	Cascade	Under Development	2,500 m / 8,250 ft

The Greater Chinook Area	Chinook	Under Development	2,690 m / 8,877 ft

Dalmatian North	Dalmatian North	Under Development	1,793 m / 5,917 ft

Constitution	Caesar	Under Development	1,372 m / 4,528 ft

Constitution	Tonga West	Under Development	1,433 m / 4,729 ft

Constitution	Tonga	Under Development	1,430 m / 4,719 ft

Perdido	Silvertip	Under Development	2,812 m / 9,280 ft

Perdido	Tobago	Under Development	2,926 m / 9,656 ft

Phoenix	Boris	Under Development	727 m / 2,399 ft

Atlantis	Atlantis North	Under Development	1,647 m / 5,435 ft

Gotcha	Gotcha	Under Development	2,377 m / 7,844 ft

EW 998	EW 998	Under Development	401 m / 1,323 ft