Mars B (Olympus, West Boreas, South Deimos) Development – Maximizing Recovery from a Deepwater Giant

Dougal Grant
[email protected]

The Mars Field, discovered in 1989 and brought onto production in 1996, is a true Deepwater Giant. The Mars Field is comprised of a thick sequence of stacked Plio-Miocene turbidite deposits trapped within a salt-flanked basin. This geologic sweet-spot generated an asset comprised of more than 70 individual reservoirs stacked in a 10000ft sequence. In-place volume estimates exceed more than 4 billion BOE. The stratigraphic section documents the evolution of salt-withdrawal and the cyclic and progressive fill and spill sedimentary dynamics of an intra-slope, salt-withdrawal mini-basin. Initial development of the Mars Field, owned by Shell (71.5%) and BP (28.5%), comprised a 24 well Tension Leg Platform, 'Mars A', with production capability of ~130K BOEPD. Production performance exceeded original predictions and the platform throughput capacity was doubled through several debottlenecking and upgrade projects. These, combined with the subsequent addition of three subsea tiebacks, gas-lift and water flooding capabilities, have lead to the recovery of in excess of 700MM BOE in the last 15yrs. The recent Near Field Exploration discoveries of West Boreas & South Deimos, along with the redevelopment study, yielded a 2010 decision to deploy a second 24 well Tension Leg Platform, 'Olympus TLP' at the Mars Field in addition to a six well subsea tieback of the West Boreas & South Deimos reservoirs. Addition of new infrastructure, complementing the existing facilities, will provide a combined 48 DVA well slots with 10 subsea wells and over 350K BOEPD processing facilities to optimize recovery from the Mars Basins beyond 2050.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90167©2013 GCAGS and GCSSEPM 63^rd Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 6-8, 2013