Offshore Oil Wells Selection: Methodology and Computational Process for Configuration Selection

Abstract Approximately ninety-two per cent of Brazilian oil production comes from oil fields more than 300 miles offshore, in water depths of 2,000 meters (6,000 feet) and reservoirs at 7,000 meters (20,000 feet). Despite the attractiveness of production from these wells, which total an average of 30,000 barrels per day per well, operating in these environmental conditions poses significant operational and technological challenges. Choosing the best configuration ensures reliable, low-downtime, and safe wells. This decision is made during early field development when designers face great uncertainty. We developed a methodology and implemented it in simulation software to contribute to choosing the best configuration. The article presents the methodology, including states and transitions, failure events, determination of the failure time, verification events, such as tests, inspections and monitoring, maintenance events and determination of the active repair time. The article also presents computational implementation. The simulation software utilizes discrete events and Monte Carlo simulations to simulate the system’s failure generation and other intrinsic randomness. It implements the methodology developed and can quantitatively evaluate the designs of the different configuration options candidates for a specific project by raising the value of each configuration indicator.