High costs of developments in ultra deepwater have prompted companies to consider game changing options: commonality of drilling systems, electrically heated flowline, innovative or revisited riser concepts. Subsea wells and FPSO appear as the global standard at least outside of the GOM.
Companies such as Statoil or Total propose new visions of the field development of the future, yet many of the suggested components are already there and production in the range of 2500 to 3000m is already a reality. Subsea Separation has been used successfully on a green field project in West Africa. High recovery is being achieved with IOR rather than with EOR. Subsea power transportation and distribution of electricity becomes a reality in the North Sea.
Based on these changes of mindset, the paper reviews the current status of the building blocks of field development and how their assembly can foretell the expected future of the oil field architecture in the next five to ten years.
Of particular importance are risers (coupled and decoupled), pipelines, power and control umbilicals and their interface with Subsea Production Systems.
