Infrastructure-independent deepwater oil field development concept

Abstract

A method for developing a sub-sea hydrocarbons field includes sub-sea wells, sub-sea oil/gas separation, storing the degassed oil in a storage tank located or the seabed, liquefying natural gas aboard a vessel using liquid nitrogen aboard the vessel to obtain liquefied natural gas, transporting the liquefied natural gas to an onshore terminal, re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas, and obtaining a new batch of liquid nitrogen using energy recovered from the re-gasifying the liquefied natural gas.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09 / 818,117 filed on Mar. 27, 2001, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. That application is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The invention relates generally to offshore oil and gas production and transportation. [0004] 2. Background Art [0005] A major factor in determining whether to exploit an offshore oil and gas field is the feasibility of handling and transporting the hydrocarbons to market once they are produced. Generally, hydrocarbons produced offshore must be transported to land-based facilities for subsequent processing and distribution. Temporary storage may be provided at the offshore production site for holding limited quantities of hydrocarbons produced and awaiting transport to shore. In some cases, equipment is also provided at the offshore production site for separating ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, in some parts of the world, the use of a seabed pipeline system for transporting hydrocarbons to shore may not be economically feasible.

For offshore facilities located a great distance from shore, construction of a pipeline to shore is typically not practicable.

Thus, tankers are typically not operated during severe or unfavorable conditions.

As a result, long delay periods may occur between tanker availability for a particular site.

Because the surface area and weight carrying capacity of the production platform 2 is extremely limited, storage facilities provided on a platform 2 are limited in size and, thus, inadequate for handling large quantities of hydrocarbons which may be produced during periods of shuttle tanker or other hydrocarbon transport unavailability.

Like other tanker-based storage systems described above, production operations which use DSL systems 30 are susceptible to interruptions in production due to severe weather conditions and periods of shuttle tanker unavailability.

As a result, these systems are expensive and limited in capacity.

Other offshore storage systems exist for use in shallow water applications; however, for the most part, these systems are not applicable for use in deepwater applications.

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