Design concept for a subsea wellhead subject to iceberg contact for marginal field development - Grand Banks of Newfoundland

• Main Author: Doha, Mazen
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2007
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/10416/; https://research.library.mun.ca/10416/1/Doha_Mazen.pdf

With the key drivers of rising energy demand and increasing prices, major operators are expanding their search for new hydrocarbon reserves, moving into deeper water, more hostile environments and targeting smaller pools and more remote reserves. -- Thus, other type of challenges rise ahead, which require developing of new innovative, cost effective, and safe technology to put these fields into production. -- One of Canada's important offshore areas that is expected to feed into the continental energy market is the East Coast offshore fields located on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition to the conventional challenges that accompany any offshore field development activity, wellhead protection from icebergs remains one of the most important challenges and takes the priority in any intended development on the Grand Banks. So far, several design strategies for iceberg risk mitigation have been suggested, and some are being already adopted, such as the glory hole concept which proved to be an efficient protection measure but at a high capital cost. -- The thesis work gives a general overview of the oil and gas industry on the Grand Banks with a focus on the various strategies and concepts for the protection of the wellheads on the Grand Banks, and their application for marginal fields' development. -- The present study favors the use of a shear link wellhead as a protection mechanism against floating and gouging icebergs, and accordingly an evaluation study was done for this system. -- A detailed structural analysis was conducted, by performing a study to determine the wellhead section stresses generated due to a floating /gouging iceberg wellhead accidental interaction. The response of the well upper section (conductor and wellhead) to ice gouges and to floating icebergs events was analyzed by a 3-D finite element numerical model using ABAQUS software. The parametric computations and creation of the ABAQUS input file employed a MATLAB code. The result was a better understanding of the ...