SPE Delta Section To Cohost Deepwater Technical Symposium

The SPE Delta Section will cohost its annual Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Technical Symposium in New Orleans in August. A variety of topics on deepwater exploration and production (E&P) will be presented.

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The SPE Delta Section will cohost its annual Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Technical Symposium in New Orleans in August. White papers covering a variety of topics on deepwater exploration and production (E&P) will be presented in 10 technical sessions.

Cohosted by the American Association of Drilling Engineers and the New Orleans Geological Society, the symposium will be held at the New Orleans Hilton Riverside on 18–20 August.

The symposium’s theme is “Creating and Delivering Value.” Alvin Wiley, cochairman of the productions systems technical session, said the papers will focus on extending the life of projects using new technology.

“When you look at creating overall value, you are looking at a ‘cradle to the grave’ scenario,” he said. “These wells are going to be drilled, completed, put in a production system, and sent down the pipeline to refineries and the gas pumps. So, along the way, as technology allows us, we’ve developed many things that add value.”

The construction and operation of facilities and production wells involve production systems. Related topics include flow assurance and pipeline-related issues. A paper will address the effects of well stimulation on production casing. Another will deal with the residual detection of polymer-scale inhibitors in the Gulf.

Wiley said the session will also feature papers on fluid flow dynamics and the need for an early assessment, prevention, and mitigation of flow assurance problems in deepwater and gas development projects.

Bob Vaughn, chair of the marine technical session and a strategic sales representative at Bourbon, said a paper will discuss the assets being used to enable deepwater E&P (e.g., a plan to replace drilling rigs with offshore vessels for certain deepwater activities).

“If you could take work that has been historically done by a drilling rig and perform that work with a vessel, you’re substituting a rig that costs [USD] hundreds of thousands a day for a vessel that may cost [USD] 60,000 or 70,000 a day. That’s clearly delivering value, especially given the fact that there are way more vessels than rigs available. As the industry gets back to something that’s really functioning at a full tempo … that will allow you to do things that you otherwise couldn’t do,” he said.

Other technical sessions scheduled to take place at the symposium are

• Pipelines and infrastructure

• Drilling technology

• Emerging technology

• Geoscience

• Health, safety, environment, and regulatory

• Reservoir and economics

• Students

• Well completions and interventions