Challenges of a floating production unit in in the arctic

Abstract

The challenging conditions in the deep water Arctic (>100) demands solutions that still have to be develop in order to successfully operate. In terms of production units the FPSO seems like the most likely solution to use in deep water areas where the distance from shore is too long to build a subsea to shore solution. The ship-shaped FPSO is the only one that have been proven and tested in real waters of the suggested options. It demands however substantial ice management in order to operate safely in Shtokman condition waters. A cylindrical FPSO has no need of weathervaning and requires less ice management. However its open water skills are still questionable and the Cylindrical FPSO-ICE is still a concept only model tested so far. In the arctic the cone shape downward structure near the waterline is to prefer due to the lower ice actions. The rapid climate change offers a problem in terms of for casting and predicting environmental condition when designing for an offshore field for an operating period over several years. The ice properties of the ice ridge are of limited knowledge. This may lead a conservative design of the production units which will increase the cost in an already cost full field development design.