On repeat: cutting costs and emissions in the Gulf of Mexico
Whale is the second of three planned oil and gas platforms with a similar design operated by Shell.
On May 31, 2024
A new oil and gas platform, its bright yellow hull gleaming in the strong sunshine, looms high above the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This is Whale, a platform built to withstand 30-metre waves during hurricane season.
Above the hull, a red and white crane stretches up to the sky, taking the overall height of the facility to 110 metres, taller than the Statue of Liberty.
鈥淲hen my four children saw it before it was towed out to sea, they said it was so small,鈥� says Jason Gage, a manager on the Whale project. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e been to see other platforms I鈥檝e worked on in the past and they were much bigger, so their reaction was understandable.鈥�
Whale is about a sixth of the height of the tallest offshore platform in the world. Weighing around 25,000 tonnes, Whale is a third of the weight of the Appomattox platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Such smaller scale helped designers to significantly cut the cost of building the facility. This slimming down will also mean that the cost of producing each barrel of oil equivalent will be among the lowest in the Gulf of Mexico.
The platform was installed offshore in February 2024, where the Whale oil and gas field lies beneath more than 2,600 metres of water around 320 kilometres south-west of Houston in the USA. The Shell-operated facility is scheduled to become operational at the end of 2024 and will be capable of producing around 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day at its peak.
Producing oil and gas with lower emissions
Investments in oil and gas platforms such as Whale continue to be needed to meet the world鈥檚 energy demand while low-carbon alternatives are developed and made commercially available. But if energy companies are to achieve a reduction in emissions at the same time, they must find ways to produce oil and gas with lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Whale has been designed to do just that. It is a close replica of the Shell-operated Vito platform, which started production in the Gulf of Mexico in early 2023. Vito is significantly smaller than its original design, resulting in lower costs and emissions. Whale will operate with around 30% lower carbon intensity over its life cycle than Vito.
Jason, who has worked on the Whale project since 2017, says simplifying the design of the platform has helped to reduce the emissions associated with its production.
鈥淲e love to add new layers of engineering, but every time we do, this adds complexity,鈥� says Jason. 鈥淓xtra pieces of equipment require more maintenance, which increases staff levels, which increases catering, which increases helicopter flights, which increases power consumption, which increases emissions.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e not careful, the carbon footprint grows. So, we had to make choices about what we actually need on the platform, versus what we鈥檇 actually like.鈥�
Power turbines are one of the biggest producers of emissions on offshore platforms. To reduce emissions on Whale, engineers have fitted waste-heat recovery units to all its power turbines. These units capture energy that would otherwise be lost to the atmosphere. This energy is then reused to heat the raw fluids so they can be exported from the platform.
The process of compressing gas before it is exported to the shore is another contributor to emissions on offshore facilities. To reduce these emissions on Whale, engineers have installed compressors which use less energy than a conventional system.
鈥淚 think the more people understand the steps we're taking, the more they will see that Shell aims to produce oil and gas responsibly,鈥� says Jason. 鈥淲e鈥檙e saving money, saving time and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, while keeping oil production stable.鈥�
Design one, build more
The project will have taken just over seven years to complete when production starts. Previously, the typical length of Shell projects of this kind has been around 10 years.
The platform was built in Singapore and then transported by sea to a quayside in Texas, USA, before being towed into the Gulf of Mexico. The Singapore construction team included Keith Rush, who has worked for Shell for 40 years.
鈥淭he older platforms I worked on had complex designs and took a long time to build鈥�, says Keith, a construction manager. 鈥淭hey also had a significant amount of excess capacity 鈥� room for extra staff, extra storage, or options to increase production.鈥�
This traditional way of constructing offshore platforms at Shell changed with the creation of Vito.
鈥淚 was also on the Vito team. A smaller facility requires the offshore operations team to store more of their spare parts onshore as opposed to having the additional storage space.鈥�
Keith and his team were able to use the basis of Vito鈥檚 design to build Whale. When Keith鈥檚 role on Whale came to an end in 2023, he started work on Sparta, an offshore platform also in the mould of Vito and Whale, which is scheduled to start production in 2028.
鈥淭hese projects always have their challenges,鈥� says Keith. 鈥淏ut the elation we experience at the end of the projects makes all those challenges worthwhile.鈥� says Keith.
It seems Keith is not ready to hang up his hard hat just yet.
