New technology opens the door for deepwater development

The paper provided an updated status of technology for deepwater field development, demonstrated the importance of its application through actual project example, and discussed some future technical development trends. The focus was on the floating structures. By reviewing some of the engineering aspects of the project, the technology advancement, innovations and challenges in offshore engineering were discussed and demonstrated. The author’s view of technical challenges facing deepwater forwarding was discussed, which covered water depth limitations, new material application, installation methods, riser development and operational issues. An overview of technologies that will enable deepwater projects to be extended into new frontiers was presented.