Subsea Technology Innovation for the Australian Oil and Gas Business

Betsy Donaghey, Senior Vice President, Browse Development, Woodside Energy Ltd, is an engaging speaker who scattered amusing anecdotes between the sober points she made in assessment of the trends and future needs of the oil and gas business in Australia.

[In my usual style, I mix first and third person, quoting and paraphrasing the speaker to preserve the speakers intent and to improve readability. Usually it is clear from the context who's words you are reading; if not, I put editorial remarks in square brackets.]

She graduated from Texas A&M with a Master in Operations Research followed by 25 years experience in the oil and gas industry - having entered the industry at 4 yo ["haha"]. Perth is ideal for the first [subsea technology] conference - to live and work in a place with a growing oil and gas industry, and raise your families live in Perth; if you want to shop on Sundays, go somewhere else [more laughter - inside joke where Perth outlaws Sunday trading, sigh].

We need more reliable equipment, cheaper equipment, greater ease of moving across vendors equipment, greater capacity in operating flexibility. Woodside has the goal to be one of the world's leading producers of LNG by 2015, primarily the NW Shelf. The goal is backed by delivering projects - oil and gas projects, of course Pluto LNG project (Sunrise and Browse).

Karratha Gas Plant, North West Shelf Venture, Western Australia (courtesy of Woodside Energy Ltd).

Lovely - I'm so proud of my company... what is the relevance to this conference? Subsea technology (Cossack Pioneer in 1995 has subsea wells) - 7 projects have offshore components, 6 have subsea components, 50% subsea production, Pluto entirely dependent on subsea wells for production.

Says something for confidence of company and skills and engineers, some at this conference:

• Multiphase pumps with fibre optic controls.
• Depths of more than 500m.
• Choose subsea - safety drivers - move people away from well heads.
• Lower cost, greater flexibility.

We expect to earn greater than $1 billion revenue from business unit entirely dependent on subsea technology. We are positive subsea technology, achievements will continue. Browse and future developments are highly likely to use subsea technology, but not necessarily so, and "dry well" remains an option.

Browse LNG first discovery in 1971 sign-posted development challenges for the field which is more than 400km offshore from Broome, largely in deep water 800m, some shallow (under coral reef), a world-class resource. Progress of technology and strong LNG markets gives a reasonably clear choice between:

1. "Dry tree unit" - reduced well workover and rework cost, use carbon steel pipeline, ease to use and fix.
2. "Subsea wells" - safety, flexibility, location, vertical and deviated wells.

It is possible we will go with dry tree, subsea wells or combination of both. The wider Australian industry required high availability and reliability - important for oil wells, essential for LNG. Need to reduce workover and intervention costs, and among others, improved flow lines and subsea processing. When you discuss improvements, saving - please remember, I want them now. ["hehe"]

Betsy's talk gives me confidence that we are on the right track with ACOSP to fill a gap between academic development and industry deployment. With systems that are currently available for deployment in the oil and gas industry, and even with product development programs, we are seeing retrograde outcomes that ignore standards, prevent interoperability and are contrary to goals of lower-cost, flexible deployments with higher reliability being sought by Betsy and her peers.

The goal of ACOSP is to facilitate and lead an industry technology development program that focuses on selected gaps in capability in order to stimulate industry cooperation and innovation, standards development and adherence, to foster an awareness of risk assessment and mitigation. Some of our local academic and industry players are about obscuring these wider benefits in favour of selfish outcomes but it is important to keep an eye on the wider economic benefits that will accrue to WA with the development of a viable, local subsea technology sector.

The status quo among some local operators, contractors and vendors is contrary to cooperation, the development of beneficial industry and technology clusters however a shift in mindset and approach is sorely needed for the industry to meet the ambitious targets described by Betsy.