ABSTRACT
This paper proposes a new concept for subsea production systems based on the use of large-scale seabed storage tanks in oil fields and studies the production availability for new subsea production systems with a large-scale seabed storage tank. The proposed concept is expected to optimize production from oil fields in the deep sea, helping to improve the production and transportation of hydrocarbon resources from deep sea fields. The proposed concept may dramatically reduce the floater size by removing the floater from the crude storage function and may widen the operational envelope of the production and transfer of the well fluid to shuttle tankers. The analysis of production availability is an important indicator of the production performance of the oil and gas industries. The production availability is analyzed using the commercial code MAROS, which is based on Monte-Carlo simulation methods. The failure rates and active repair times of the equipment for the proposed new subsea systems are collected from generic reliability data sources.
