Page 20: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2020)

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SUBSEA Tiebacks

Source: JDR

James Young

JDR’s Chief

Technology Of?cer

JDR’s horizontal layup machine has meant it’s been able to offer more bespoke and varied umbilicals and cables.

Global awards for subsea trees per year They’ve boomed (relatively) globally since Q4 2018. But

New projects are also coming, including developments like they’ve also been raising eyebrows, says Bjørvik.

Mozambique LNG, Sangomar, Barossa, Scarborough and Liza. Some 50% of the subsea tree awards in 2019 were through

Despite this, there’s not going to be a return to boom years. these integrated contracts and a large number of those were

While Wood Mackenzie expects 2020 to be ?at, compared dominated by TechnipFMC, he says. with 2019, indicating a potential for more consolidation in “Operators are now a bit afraid they’ve created monsters the supply chain, it still predicts 7500km of subsea umbilicals, and it worries players outside of this approach,” he says.

risers, and ?owlines to be installed in 2020-24 – an amount With portfolios packed with potential projects, in basins which would stretch from Aberdeen to Houston – as well as that have existing infrastructure, such as the North Sea and 450 new subsea wells. That’s just in Europe. Globally, the ?rm the Gulf of Mexico, operators are also being picky, with easy, expects 44,000 km of SURF to be installed and 1,500 new fast return projects making the grade, so the more technical subsea wells to start production between 2020-2024. Evans projects are not necessarily coming through. says 60% of all future subsea wells are expected to be tiebacks. The economics of subsea tiebacks, especially in a relatively

Henning Bjørvik, an analyst in the Oil?eld Service team mature basin like the Gulf of Mexico, are healthy, says Jonah at Rystad Energy with a primary focus on the subsea market, Margulis, US Country Manager at Aker Solutions. says that in 2022-2023, close to 400 trees are expected to be Operators there are targeting oil and the tieback lengths, installed. According to Rystad’s analysis, most of these would water depths, and pressures are continuing to increase, he says, still be robust at $50/bbl, but not if it dropped to $40/bbl. with many now quite comfortable with a 15,000 psi pressure

A big trend is the success of the integrated contractors – the regime and 20,000 psi developments are happening, he says. likes of TechnipFMC, Subsea 7 and OneSubsea’s Subsea Integra- But, there’s still a fundamental gap in terms of the ask from tion Alliance, and McDermott and Baker Hughes’ alliance, offer- operators of their technology partners for new technology and ing SURF and subsea production systems (SPS) in one contract. a willingness to pay for it or for it to be funded by the service 20 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM