Parque das Conchas is an ultra-deepwater heavy oil development located in the northern Campos basin offshore Brazil. The project is a joint venture between Shell, Petrobras, and ONGC. The first phase of the project is the development of 3 independent subsea fields tied back to the centrally located turret moored floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) host facility entitled the FPSO Espirito Santo. The phase 1 Abalone, Ostra, and Argonauta B west fields are small to medium in size, with low-pressured reservoirs, and range in oil gravities from 17O to 42O API. A fourth 16O API gravity heavy oil field requiring water flood, Argonauta O north, will be tied back as part of phase 2 and is planned to be ready for production in 2013. The phase 1 subsea infrastructure consists of 10 producing wells and 1 gas injection well connected via 140 kilometers of pipelines and flowlines ranging in size from 6?? to 12??, 15 flowline sleds, 2 production manifolds, 2 artificial lift manifolds housing a total of 6 vertical subsea separation caissons with 1500 hp ESP's, 25 jumpers, all of which are serviced by 30 kilometers of high voltage multi-circuit electro/hydraulic umbilicals and 20 kilometers of static electro-hydraulic umbilicals. The FPSO Espirito Santo is a converted 1975 VLCC moored in 1,780 meters of water and equipped to process 100,000 bopd, 50 MMscfpd, with 1.4 million barrels of oil storage capacity. The Parque das Conchas development is the result of a 9-year effort to understand the complex geology, identify sufficient reserves to support a development, identify an economic development concept, and to design, mature and apply the significant new technologies required to safely execute the project during an extremely volatile market period. This paper provides an overview of the development and execution of the project, highlights new technologies that have been developed and implemented and introduces the key challenges, achievements, and learning's in various parts of the project and the tight integration between all disciplines required to successfully deliver the Parque das Conchas project. Additional details can be found in the dedicated support papers have been generated and listed in the Reference section of this paper.
The Parque das Conchas development grew out of a substantial exploration and appraisal program commencing in 2000 in which 13 wells were drilled and 6 discoveries were made. The Declaration of Commerciality was signed with the ANP (the Brazilian National Petroleum Agency) in December 2005 and the project was sanctioned in November 2006. The four main reservoirs; Ostra, Abalone, Argonauta B west, and Argonauta O north were named after aquatic shellfish indigenous to the area. Together they form " Parque das Conchas?? or " Shell Park?? in Portuguese. This is the first project taken by Shell from exploration discovery to production. First oil from Phase 1 was achieved on the 12th of July 2009, just 9 years after discovery.
