Global oil and gas producers annually invest billions of dollars in capital expenditures for field development and production projects. In order to maximize the hydrocarbon extraction and processing from deepwater fields, selecting the right concept for floating production facilities is paramount in their quest to get the best return, and reduce the risk, on this significant investment.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s Mustang Engineering (now part of Asset Life Cycle Solutions) was known throughout the offshore upstream segment as THE Company to contact when planning a deepwater project. Its engineering capabilities garnered 50 percent or more of the pre-front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) and conceptual studies undertaken during that period.
In 2002, Mustang’s leadership position as the industry authority prompted an approach to Offshore Magazine with an idea for a wall poster that would benefit the entire industry. The focus was deepwater concept selection for production technologies. The poster tracked historic information and operating capability comparisons on a variety of floating production system types including tension leg platforms (TLPs); floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs); semisubmersibles; and spars. Its content provided immeasurable time savings for exploration and production (E&P) company staff engineers in narrowing viable field development solutions. This tool enabled the companies to move more quickly through the FEED phase toward accelerated project execution and first production.
The first 30” x 40” poster was folded and inserted in the May 2002 issue of Offshore, and distributed at the annual Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) and to the magazine’s subscribers. This initial poster was an instant success and in high demand. It soon became a fixture on the office walls of E&P company engineers around the world.
The poster creation arrangement began a series of data-driven posters that expanded in many directions. Today, more than 130 reference posters covering a wide range of topics have been developed at Offshore, over half of those in partnership with Wood Group. While the initial poster provided broad information, subsequent posters focused on a specific deepwater technology.
Marketing and other departments researched the data. The first such endeavor was specifically for FPSOs, detailing the universe of global operating vessels with pertinent information about ownership, physical attributes, operating water depth and field characteristics for each vessel, reported by country and basin. Similar detailed posters were created for spars, TLPs, and semisubmersibles, and published periodically as those systems grew in number and their characteristics changed.
The success of the posters led Offshore Magazine’s sister periodical, Oil and Gas Journal, to enlist other Wood Group engineers and technical specialists to provide 3D renderings and flow diagram posters that depicted specific processes, equipment and facilities used in midstream, downstream and pipeline segments. These instructional posters showed the broad range of Wood Group’s expertise.
In the pipeline arena, diverse processes included gas pipelines, terminals and natural gas processing. Downstream posters featured refining processes such as delayed coking, hydrotreating, hydrocracking, crude distillation and fractionation. Midstream posters depicted subjects including liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification, and natural gas liquids processing and terminaling. While these posters were developed as early as 2004, they still are in demand today as a key educational resource.
In May 2017, Wood Group and Offshore Magazine published the 16th consecutive concept selection and deepwater solutions poster. In August, the FPSO poster will also be published for the 16th time. Many technical experts within the business, external consultants and knowledgeable vendor authorities have contributed to Wood Group’s position as one of the industry’s most thorough and relied-on sources, and THE recognized leader in oil and gas industry posters.