Subsea Well completion Method

Completion involves a set of actions taken to convert an individual borehole into

an operational system for controlled recovery of underground hydrocarbon
resources.

A subsea completion refers to a system of pipes, connections, and valves that

reside on the sea floor and serve to gather hydrocarbons produced from
individually completed wells and direct those hydrocarbons to a storage and
offloading facility that might be either offshore or onshore.

Subsea completions typically contains

1) Upper Completion:
2) Lower Completion:
3) Production Tree

One of the remarkable accomplishments of the upstream offshore petroleum

industry has been the development of technology that allows simplified but
efficient subsea well access to carry out the operations in a more complex
situation.

Despite an increase in complexity, improvements in subsea well access and

completion technology have allowed more complex well patterns to be drilled to a
greater depth such that additional hydrocarbon resources can be developed at a
greater distance from the drilling or production structure, allowing more energy to
be produced with less environmental impact.

In the past 15 years, mechanical subsea systems have been developed, which allow
deep-water riserless drilling with weighted mud and with fluid returns to the
drilling rig. Those systems allow a dual-gradient hydrostatic pressure to be applied,
thereby more closely matching the natural deepwater pressure profile. While those
systems have been used on a number of offshore wells, there is limited supply of
the necessary equipment and other well-control issues must be carefully considered
for each particular operation.
The integrity management process (IMP) is the core of the integrity management
system (IMS) and should ensure safe, cost-effective, and reliable operation of the
subsea production system. It is a continuous and iterative process that should be
part of the whole life cycle of the system, starting in the project phase and
continuing through the operations phase and abandonment phase.

Environmental Benefits

Subsea completions offer environmental benefits that accrue during the

development of the resource (less time over the hole, fewer resources used, less
capital equipment requiring resources to develop the field, etc.) as well as during
the production and eventual disposal of the production equipment (platforms,
manifolds, etc.)

Subsea completions have an economic advantage compared with other field

development alternatives such as bottom-founded structures (e.g., platforms). This
advantage increases with greater water depth and, in some cases, bottom-founded
structures are not possible due to the sheer size potentially required for such a
structure. At present, the FPSO cost is approximately one-half of the cost of a
bottom-founded structure. Operating costs of an FPSO are approximately
$250,000/month compared with satellite subsea trees, which are $25,000/month.

During well construction and installation of the subsea completion, rig costs are
paramount. Currently, daily costs run from $200,000 to upwards of $750,000 per
day. Operators eager to improve profitability take every opportunity to reduce time
over the well and reward contractors who significantly reduce well-construction
and completion times. This includes reducing the number of trips to install
completions as well as reducing nonproductive time from excessive trips. Specific
bottomhole completion methodologies have evolved to minimize the number of
trips to complete the well.

Looking Long Term

The true success of a subsea completion lies in its ability to continue to produce
over time. Any interruption of the production stream, particularly from deepwater,
high-producing wells can quickly affect the economic performance of a project.

The barriers and opportunities for subsea completions fall into five categories:

 Regulatory controls
 Safety management
 Economic advantages
 Technological aspects
 Environmental issues.

The long-term outlook and vision for future of subsea well access and completions
is bright. Continuous advances in materials, sensing capability, and control systems
will allow more economic recovery of resources. Additionally, field and well
architecture developments, including multilateral wells and extended-reach
drilling, offer even more potential. Adding to those advances are possibilities for
complete field development, production and control including subsea processing,
re-injection, and potential waterflooding all controlled without intervention, and
matching a predefined model of field drainage.

A subsea completion is one in which the producing well does not include a vertical
conduit from the wellhead back to a fixed access structure. A subsea well typically
has a production tree to which a flowline is connected allowing production to
another structure, a floating production vessel, or occasionally back to a shore-
based facility. Subsea completions may be used in deep water as well as shallow
water and may be of any pressure and temperature rating including high-
pressure, high-temperature (HPHT)1 ratings. Subsea completions consist of a
production tree sitting on the ocean floor, an upper completion connecting the
production tree to the lower completion and the lower completion which is
installed across the producing intervals.