壳牌的 Vito 项目：通往深水的艰难历程

壳牌维托项目的生产之路遇到了一些挫折，但目前已达到峰值生产的一半。

杰克森
凯恩斯
哈特能源

即使在墨西哥湾 (GoM) 的深水区，有时也会在最意想不到的地方出现一线希望。对于壳牌来说，将墨西哥湾的 Vito 项目上线的冒险之旅将一个看似不可能且成本高昂的项目变成了一个精简、更便宜的深水开发蓝图。

Vito 项目横跨密西西比峡谷的四个外大陆架区块，是一个深水油田，水深超过 4,000 英尺。于 2009 年发现，壳牌和 Equinor 拥有该油田的所有权股份，其中壳牌作为运营商持有 63.11 的股份% 和 Equinor 剩余的 36.89%。Vito 的峰值产量估计为平均 100,000 桶油当量/天，估计可采资源量为 290 MMboe。项目团队在休斯敦举行的 2023 年海上技术会议的小组会议上表示，Vito 的开发对壳牌来说是一次艰难的攀登。

在进行 Vito 开发时，项目经理 Kurt Shallenberger 有几个问题要问自己和他的团队：

沙伦伯格
Kurt Shallenberger 在 OTC 期间的 Vito：通过适应和恢复力寻找机会会议上发表讲话。（来源：OTC）

“这会让我们的人民足够关心，进行文化变革，让不可能成为可能，让不可能变得负担得起吗？……我们是否在建造酷炫的大东西方面迷失了方向，而不是建造那些负担得起的、能够维持我们自己的东西？”

沙伦伯格将水库比作“新房”，并指出这就像从底层开始并向行业内的其他项目学习。

考虑到这一点，壳牌将目光转向了他们也在墨西哥政府开发的 Appomattox 项目。参与 Vito 项目的壳牌工程师 Eirik Sorgard 表示，阿波马托克斯 (Appomattox) 是墨西哥湾最大的海上项目，位于维托 (Vito)，最初计划最大容量为 40,000 公吨 (mt)。然而，到 2014 年底，油价下跌——当时大规模开发项目不再被认为具有竞争力——迫使它们重新回到设计阶段。

“谨慎风险”

壳牌公司用这样的问题来解决他们的新问题：“我们如何才能更有竞争力地开发这个资源库？”索加德说。他们回来后意识到，他们不需要高水平的裁员，他们可以以更小的占地面积来开发该项目，同时也使其更易于运营。

该项目于 2015 年重新调整范围，规模缩小至仅 8,500 吨，CO 2排放量减少了 80% 。项目简化还导致成本比最初概念降低了 70% 以上。这不是唯一的变化。

事实上，索加德称这一开发与他们过去几十年所做的事情“截然不同”。

“当你观察墨西哥湾 30,000 英尺深的深水水库和低于 6,000 至 8,000 英尺盐层时，过去我们通常会尝试使用 8 到 10 条套管流进行开采，”Sorgard 说。“如果我们想让这个负担得起，我们就必须承担谨慎的风险。这意味着我们不愿意牺牲流程安全风险，但我们可能愿意通过尝试缩小流程以获得更实惠和更具竞争力的项目来承担一些效率风险。”

由于这种冒险精神，Vito 最终采用了六套管流设计和井内气举系统，成为壳牌开发井和勘探井事实上的模板。

Vito 是壳牌第 13 个深水 GoM 开发项目，于 2 月开始生产，距壳牌于 2018 年 4 月做出最终投资决定已近五年。

维托模板

Vito 的浮式生产装置 (FPU) 拥有经济高效的设计，也可作为壳牌其他一些项目的模板。Whale 项目的 FPU 将是 Vito 99% 的复制品。FPU 是一个四柱半潜式平台，配有相关的出油管线和设备。

“维托为我们代表的是一种新方式，”索加德说。“有些人可能会说，我们有点迷失了方向，又回到了我们过去处理发展的旧方式。对于那些这么说的人，我实际上会对他们说，“是的，你可能是对的”，但事实证明，它对较低的油价环境更具弹性。

目前，Vito投产仅两个半月，产量已达到5万桶油当量/天。

原文链接/hartenergy

Shell’s Vito Project: The Uphill Climb to Deepwater

Shell’s path to production for the Vito project faced a few setbacks, but is now halfway to peak production.

Jaxon
Caines
Hart Energy

Now and then, a silver lining turns up where least expected — even in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). For Shell, the odyssey to bring the GoM’s Vito project online turned what seemed like an impossible and costly project into a slimmed down, cheaper blueprint for deepwater developments.

The Vito project, which spans four Outer Continental Shelf blocks in the Mississippi Canyon, is a deepwater oilfield lying in water depths of more than 4,000 ft. Discovered in 2009, Shell and Equinor have ownership stakes in the field, with Shell as operator holding 63.11% and Equinor the remaining 36.89%. Vito’s peak production is estimated to be an average 100,000 boe/d with an estimated recoverable resource volume of 290 MMboe. The development of Vito was quite the uphill climb for Shell, the project team said during a panel at the 2023 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.

When approaching the Vito development, project manager Kurt Shallenberger had a few questions to ask himself and his team:

Shallenberger
Kurt Shallenberger speaking at the Vito: Finding Opportunity Through Adaption and Resiliency session during OTC. (Source: OTC)

“What's going to make our people care enough to make a cultural change of making impossible possible, of making the impossible affordable?... Have we lost our way in building cool, big things and not building things that are affordable to sustain ourselves?”

Shallenberger compared reservoirs to “starter homes,” noting it is like starting from the bottom and learning from other projects around the industry.

With this in mind, Shell turned their eyes to the Appomattox project they were also developing in the GoM. Appomattox—Shell’s biggest offshore project in the GoM—led to Vito initially planned to have a top size of 40,000 metric tons (mt), said Eirik Sorgard, a Shell engineer who worked on the Vito project. However, oil prices took a fall towards the end of 2014 — a time when massive developments were no longer considered competitive — and forced them back to the drawing board.

‘Prudent risks’

Shell attacked their new problem with the question of, “How can we develop this resource base more competitively?” Sorgard said. They came back with the realization that they did not need a high level of redundancies and they could develop the project with a much smaller footprint, while also making it easier to operate.

The project was rescoped in 2015, reducing the size to only 8,500 mt and resulting in a reduction of 80% in CO2 emissions. The project simplification also resulted in a cost reduction of more than 70% from the original concept. That wasn’t the only change.

In fact, Sorgard called the development a “stark departure,” from what they had done in decades past.

“When you look at a deepwater Gulf of Mexico reservoir of 30,000 feet and below 6,000 to 8,000 feet of salt, in the past we would typically try to get down using eight to 10 casing streams,” Sorgard said. “If we were going to make this affordable, we have to take prudent risks. That means we are not willing to sacrifice on process safety risks, but we might be willing to take some efficiency risks by trying to slim this down to get a more affordable and competitive project.”

Because of this risk taking, Vito, which ultimately ended up with a six-casing stream design and an in-well gas lift system, serves as a de facto template for Shell’s developmental and exploration wells.

Vito, Shell’s 13th deepwater GoM development, began production in February, nearly five years after Shell made its final investment decision in April 2018.

The Vito template

The floating production unit (FPU) for Vito boasts a cost-efficient design that also serves as a template for some of Shell’s other projects. The Whale project’s FPU will be a 99% replica of Vito. The FPU is a four-column semisubmersible with associated flowlines and equipment.

“What Vito represented for us was a new way,” Sorgard said. “Some might say that we had lost our way a little bit and that it is back to the old way that we used to approach developments. And for those who claim that, I will actually say to them, ‘Yeah, you're probably right,’ but it proved to be more resilient to a lower oil price environment.”

Currently, Vito production has reached 50,000 boe/d, only two and a half months after coming onstream.