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Wood teams up with Rosetti Marino to deliver FEED for North Sea platform
The successful delivery of projects requires a cycle of continuous improvement, overcoming cost and schedule barriers, while accelerating and enhancing what has been done before. Engineered designs provide the roadmap to deliver a project, and at Wood, we are driven to provide the safest, cleanest and most efficient solutions for the next generation of energy production.
Delivering the world’s first ultra-high pressure deepwater development
Chevron Anchor, an offshore project in the Gulf of Mexico, is the world’s first ultra-high pressure deepwater development. Wood began working with Chevron on this project in 2016, from initial design into the completion of detailed engineering to field support and start-up. In August 2024, Chevron announced the start of production at this facility, which is designed to produce 75,000 barrels of oil and 28 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day.
"There’s probably nothing better for an engineer, for a project manager, than to actually see something that you started off with [on] a blank sheet of paper, to see it producing, to see it actually positively impacting the world, providing energy for a lot of people."
Jeremy Hall, President of Technical and Assurance and Project Manager for Anchor
Reaching new depths by hitting the 20,000 psi milestone
Pressure management is mandatory for safe and reliable operations for any offshore project. Over the years, offshore facilities have improved design capacities for higher pressure, higher temperature and deeper reservoir access, with 15,000 psi being the standard depth today.
The discovery and safe extraction of 20,000 psi, or 20k, reservoirs have been under development for the last couple of years with industry consortiums focused on reaching these new depths. Anchor is the first offshore facility to achieve a design pressure of 20k, a pathfinder project that the industry looks to for future innovation and best practices. Anchor has set a new benchmark for resource and production capacity.
“As drilling continues, and as substantial reservoirs are discovered that are at that pressure, we will move forward. 20k and beyond is no longer a stress point for our customers because they recognise that we’ve got the capability,” said Hall.
Turning up the pressure for access is not as easy as it seems. This engineering and design is complex, and pressure and temperature management are a necessity to prevent blow outs or uncontrolled releases of crude oil and gas.
Realising a step change in execution to produce an economically viable design
Anchor illustrates a new frontier of deepwater development. Reaching 20k was not the only test, Chevron needed to produce an economically viable design and challenge their typical ways of working.
Wood was introduced to support this thinking differently. Our global knowledge of developing deepwater designs, history of modularisation and project management expertise were maximised to provide a cost-effective, minimally viable product that could be leveraged for future similar discoveries.
“From a technology standpoint, from an innovation standpoint, from a design standpoint, from an engineering standpoint, we can come up with the designs that can handle those — I don’t want to say easily — but we have the team with the experience to take those step changes,” said Hall.
Utilising value engineering, the team revolutionised the use of technology, specifications and standards and vendor equipment to maintain the simplicity of a safe and operable design. Interface management and communication was key, and decisions were gated and focused on common goals determined at project inception.
During project development, the team encountered another unprecedented challenge – the Covid-19 pandemic. During the integral execution phase, a remote team was organised and mitigation techniques were implemented amongst global supply chain disruptions.
Wood supported Chevron throughout the project lifecycle and the project was reliably delivered to budget and schedule. The common goals set out at project inception were achieved when Anchor hit first production at 20,000 psi in August 2024.
With over 2,500 offshore specialists focusing on deepwater floating systems, SURF (subsea, umbilicals, risers, and flowlines), hull and marine systems, modularisation and weight control at execution hubs around the world including Houston, Perth, Staines, Galway and Sandefjord, the future is bright for Wood’s offshore innovations.
“But it really comes down to working with our partners, the subcontractors, the vendors, to make sure that they have the materials that are capable of designing new technologies that can withstand pressures downhole, such as 20,000 or greater,” said Hall.
To date, Wood has designed over 50% of the deepwater facilities operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
This website article contains quotes from an Upstream Magazine article where Jeremy Hall discusses Chevron Anchor’s success and what’s next on the project horizon for deepwater developments.
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