Many in the offshore oil and gas industry consider Shell's Perdido operation to be the most advanced running today. Shell has been at the cutting edge of deep water developments for more than 30 years. innovative technology. The Perdido development in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest and deepest in a series of Shell deepwater successes stretching back more than 30 years. The Perdido topsides rest on a buoyant spar, the combined structure being almost the height of the Eiffel tower in Paris. Moored in 2,450 metres of water, this is the deepest combined drilling and production platform in the world. The Perdido development was only possible through a series of technology firsts across a range of disciplines. This combination of technology innovation and integration is paramount. It is fundamental to the continuous progress that we have made Shell's 30+ years of deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico produce an average Shell-share of about 187 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day. The Perdido facility sits over four oil and gas reservoirs. We expect it to ultimately connect 35 wells through a network of pipes on the seafloor. The facility is expected to produce about 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Three words best summarise the challenges associated with deepwater development: scale, complexity and extremity. Challenges revolve around the installation of equipment, of access to the seabed and of bridging the distance between the seabed and the surface. The extended water column exerts huge pressures on oilfield equipment, which consequently has to be stronger than normal. As an example, the vital riser pipes used for drilling and production become heavier the deeper the water, which creates specific design challenges in terms of their fatigue life and the way they interface with surface and seabed facilities. Platforms become bigger and more complicated to accommodate the hardware requirements and cope with the massive loads involved. Of course, the natural environment does not help. When working in deeper water, which is generally further offshore, the weather conditions, the wave forces and the currents can be extreme, which adds to the challenge of designing adequate facilities. Seabed temperatures also fall towards freezing, which raises the issue of hydrate formation and makes flow assurance a particularly important deepwater technology focus.And the challenges do not end once production begins. Every aspect of oilfield operations and logistics, especially those involving well intervention, has to be viewed in a new and often costly light. The operation is home to the world's greatest ocean-depth-operating production platform and drilling rig, both floating in 8,000 feet of water. And it's tied into the world's deepest offshore wellhead, in the Tobago field, resting at the bottom at 9,600 feet. A 200-foot-high platform is mounted to a cylindrical spar roughly the size of Paris' Eiffel Tower, with the combined 55,000 metric tons creating enough displacement to keep everything afloat. Moored to the seafloor, Perdido bobs up and down in the water much like a cork. It's also semimobile, with the crew using a system of massive chains and winches to allow it to migrate over a 300-foot radius, to service the array of wells in the Great White field beneath. The whole thing is powered by massive natural-gas-powered generators, a backup diesel generator, a complex network of heating and cooling systems, and its own water treatment plant. Just 8 miles from the maritime border with Mexico, Perdido is also the most remote offshore operation anywhere. The operators of Perdido's 5-ton unmanned submarine, or remote operated vehicle (ROV) -- run by Oceaneering International Inc. -- said they routinely encounter bizarre life-forms they take note of. During one brief demonstration, a reporter saw on the ROV's camera a strange species of squid and a type of swimming sea cucumber the Oceaneering team nicknamed the "headless chicken." But the main attraction is the oil and gas deposits. The tertiary trend Smith described lies in a relatively shallow, easy-to-drill zone about 6,000 feet from the ocean floor. And it's rich -- although it's currently pumping about 75,000 barrels of crude oil per day at Perdido, Shell expects production to soon hit 100,000 barrels a day, and the company anticipates the platform keeping a similarly strong pace for at least 20 years.

• published: 04 Jan 2014
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