The world economic situation characterized by the energy crisis created by the oil shortage and consequent oil price rise, has in the last decade, and more particularly in the last five years, determined the oil particularly in the last five years, determined the oil industry's entry into a more expensive exploitation of offshore oilfields. This trend is being pursued by means of considerable research and development activities in the following areas:
Achievement of technologies and exploitation systems suitable for oil/gas production in verydeep waters, in severe meteoceanographic condition seven in arctic environment.
Achievement of technologies and systems for the economic extraction of oil/gas from fields of moderate size and production remotely located or not easily linkable to major production complexes.
Rationalization of the development programme of the oilfield exploitation systems by means of techniques and components which may require lower investments and quicker recovery.
Optimization of design of the exploitation system components implementation of their operating efficiency achievement of high operating safety standards.
A particular interest is being expressed by oil companies in the development of the so called marginal oil/gas fields. That is those fields which due to their expected production, their location and environmental characteristics, were considered not economically exploitable with the conventional systems, mainly based on fixed piled platforms. In the present paper the technical and economical problems posed by the development of marginal fields will problems posed by the development of marginal fields will be considered and the various solutions proposed by Tecnomare in this regard will be presented.
