Abstract
This paper describes the challenges and opportunities facing operators with mature assets in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Oxy has a large deepwater asset base that, although mature, continues to provide the company value through robustness coupled with enhanced recovery techniques.
The deepwater Gulf of Mexico has transitioned from a reasonably steady pace of greenfield developments with standalone facilities into large brownfield projects with subsea tiebacks. As our mature deepwater fields have depleted, Oxy has leveraged the most up-to-date analytical methods and inspection techniques to extend the productive life of our floating and subsea infrastructure. Additionally, Oxy continues to apply a multitude of enhanced recovery technologies to maximize the recoverable reserves.
One of the key challenges for mature deepwater infrastructure is to institute an aggressive and robust integrity management program to achieve approval for continued service in hurricane-prone waters. The second key challenge is to boost the declining production of the aging reservoirs using a variety of enhanced recovery technologies rather than decommissioning the facilities because they are no longer economic to keep in operation.
