Field Development

Peritus senior staff have a broad range of skills and experience garnered through all phases of a project, from the earliest front-end and feasibility work, through to concept selection, FEED, detailed design and operation.

During the Appraise and Select phases, small, highly experienced teams provide clients with a cost-effective way to identify opportunities and assess technical and commercial feasibility.

Peritus staff have a wide range of experience of onshore and offshore developments, both greenfield and brownfield.

There are a number of drivers for the engagement of Field Development support during the Exploration phase as follows:

• An Operator may be considering bidding for an exploration block or considering farming in or out of acreage.
• There may be a need to confirm the commerciality of an identified prospect to justify exploration drilling.
• The Operator may need to justify further study and progression to an appraisal phase.
• The Operator may require field development work in the development of a strategy for its proven, probable and possible oil and gas assets in a region.  In this case, the Operator is interested in the value drivers for different product streams to determine which might offer the greatest potential to monetise the reserves.

It is common to produce high-level cost estimate of a field development plan as input to the economic analyses. 

Typical support activities include:

• Assisting in framing workshops where the scale and scope of the project is determined;
• Identifying the basis and assumptions upon which the facilities definition will be performed;
• Identifying market opportunities and
• Preparation of high-level estimates for costs and schedules.

Given the level of uncertainty, these estimates are normally conducted in a short space of time and at the highest level.  The main deliverables are concept level engineering definition as input to costs and schedule estimates with sketches of proposed field layouts.

The objective at the appraise phase is to identify at least one technically and commercially viable development option rather than attempting to assess a range of options. This minimises expenditure before more detailed studies are considered.  The process involves collaboration with the sub-surface and reservoir, drilling, commercial and other disciplines to match the “knowns” and “unknowns” of the potential development to an engineering solution that will allow commercialisation of the field(s).

The key deliverable is a Feasibility Report that summarises the findings of the studies which may include benchmarks against analogous projects.  The report will include the output from the framing workshops, the preliminary cost estimates and the high level economic screening.  Consideration should be given to downstream processing options for the production of derivative products which may add value to the reserves.

The Concept Selection phase is where the range of possible development concepts are considered and narrowed to a point where a single concept is identified and recommended as the preferred way forward.  The objective is to complete sufficient engineering definition to allow comparison of the identified Concepts.

Typical support activities for the Select phase include:

• Concept Selection workshops;
• Development of Selection criteria and weightings;
• Concept Engineering design;
• Flow assurance studies, where appropriate;
• HSE evaluations; and
• Preparation of cost and schedule estimates as input to commercial evaluations.

The key deliverable in the Concept Select phase is a Concept Selection Report which will summarise:

• Process design and flow assurance;
• Structural, subsea design and installation (where appropriate);
• Comparative Environmental assessments (ENVID or initial impact assessments);
• Comparative Technical safety assessments (HAZOP, HAZID, etc.);
• Input to Risk and other strategic study reviews and workshops;
• Field layout sketches;
• Phased CAPEX and OPEX estimates;
• Benchmarking against analogous developments and projects; and
• High level economic evaluation.

Peritus’ subsea and floating systems engineers and consultants can provide specialist engineering support to the more detailed engineering definition required during the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and detailed design phases of a development.  More specifically, Peritus’ key strengths are in:

• Subsea Systems;
• Subsea Pipelines;
• Marine Risers;
• Floating Structures and
• Flow Assurance.

Field development opportunities commonly employ a range of workshops to focus the development team’s energy in structured, time efficient meetings to progress the development and to achieve specific project goals.  These can include:

• Opportunity Framing Workshops;
• Value Improvement Workshops;
• Risk and Opportunity Workshops; and
• Concept Screening Workshops.

It is normal for these workshops to be facilitated by non-project team members to ensure independence and allow all team members to fully participate.  Experienced workshop facilitators can help deliver focussed results in the short amount of time normally allocated, allowing the study team to be distracted from the study deliverables for as short a time as possible, while still contributing to the key development shaping exercises.

Peritus senior staff have broad experience in the facilitation of meetings, reviews and workshops, including:

• Workshop planning, in conjunction with the study leader(s);
• Preparation of workshop materials;
• Facilitation of workshop sessions, including scribes if required;
• Production of workshop minutes; and
• Issuing and coordination of workshop summary reports.

Peritus senior staff also have experience in a variety of third party reviews such as safety studies, design reviews and operational readiness reviews.

Typical reviews have included:

• Operational Readiness reviews (pre start up);
• Third Party Reviews of design (Peer Reviews);
• Due diligence reviews; and
• HAZID, ENVID, HAZOP.

In addition to discipline engineering roles, Peritus can and has provided Project Management Services in the form of provision of owners engineering teams, supervising the EPCIC contractors during Develop and Execute.  Peritus are able to use their own management and project support systems if required.  Peritus’ Management Systems are certified to ISO 9001.