Offshore staff
HOUSTON --Earlier this week, Argus Subsea announced the company establishment as part of The Galathea Group and also introduced its AZ-10 subsea tree. Subsequently at the Offshore Technology Conference, company representatives discussed the new venture with Offshore magazine.
With an aim to meeting equipment needs in the early production subsea market, the company's first release is the AZ-10 tree.
"In today's highly volatile energy market, getting an oilfield online quickly can mean the difference between profitability or bankruptcy," said Carl Aubrey, GM of Argus Subsea. "The Argus AZ-10 has the ability to reduce the drilling and completion cost for a subsea completion by more than 40%, while reducing the first oil schedule by 15 months. This enables the operator to reduce drilling and completion cost by $10 million or more."
The AZ-10 is an off-the-shelf subsea tree that features a totally concentric tree and hanger system. It has a water depth capability to 6,000 ft (1,829 m), a working pressure to 10,000 psi (69 MPa), temperature rating of 250º F (121º C), with a design life of 20 years.
"Argus' tree is expected to fit into early production operations, in marginal fields, and for extended well testing," said Earl Broussard, director of marketing. "We can reduce the schedule to first oil in a typical fast-track development from about 800 days to less than 250."
This reduction in wait time accounts for much of the overall savings, but there are other advantages, said Broussard. The tubing hanger and running tool are factory assembled, and the installation requires only five tools.
"The tree is all stainless steel, with no overlays, and monobore" added Broussard. "At less than 50,000 lb, it weights less than half of most standard subsea trees, so it can be handled by a typical rig crane. If you can run a BOP stack through the rig moonpool, you can run this tree."
Adding to the system applicability, instead of interfacing with OEM hardware which is not standardized, Broussard said it interfaces with standardized OCTG.
05/06/2009
