In every oil and gas field development projects, especially when moving into deep water and/or long tieback distances in harsh environments, flow assurance is of crucial importance in order to define a robust, reliable concept which will ensure security of supply during the whole production phase. There are, however, several parameters which affect the flow assurance. The value of these parameters usually is associated with uncertainty, especially in the early phase of the project, as in the concept definition/ concept selection phase, and this will inevitably bring uncertainty into the flow assurance analysis. Understanding the level of uncertainty and impact on production performance is the key to making sound technical decisions. An important aspect when moving to ultra long distances is that the effect of small relative uncertainties scaled with 500 km may potentially accumulate to large absolute errors.
This paper, which is the first out of two papers in serie /2/ describe a method which has been developed by Shtokman Development AG together with SPT Group in order to facilitate a systematic way of analysing the risk picture, and to identify the major risk contributors in a general flow assurance project. The work and the approach presented is a continuation and improvement of the approach presented in /1/.
Application of the method on the ultra long 550 km two-phase flow trunkline from the Shtokman Field to shore is illustrated.
