Use of light weight substructures for oil and gas marginal field development

As the world oil price is cyclic in nature, the economic viability of the oil and gas developments is often subjected to a certain risk and sometime unforeseeable. The development plans, which were economical at certain time, may no longer be true at other time, especially when the oil price hit the bottom level. Typical example of this type of development is the marginal fields, which require minimal investment and fast recovery in order to remain viable. This is due to the short life span of reservoir, minimal crude reserve and also mostly scattered in various locations. In some cases the development will be put on-hold for the next cycle or when the oil price at the peak or attractive level. Whilst the marginal filed development is commonly simple in term of process facilities, but the structures will remain complex if the design is to adopt a standard or conventional approach. The complexities of the structures are mainly dependent on several factors such as topside loads, environmental conditions, operating philosophy, soil conditions and the water depth. With the structure is relatively more complex than other facilities, the structure cost may out weighted other cost and thus put the total project cost as non-viable to proceed with the development. This paper briefly discussed how the use of the Light Weight Structures may reduce the overall project cost thus potentially save the project. The main point of interest will be: what are the technical challenges of the cost saving ideas, such as deviation to Codes and Standard and common practices, use of state of the arts computer analysis, fit for purpose principal and use of newly developed or non proven technologies.