BP Amoco subsea control system lessons

Recent BP Amoco experience of electro-hydraulic (E/H) multiplexed production control systems in water depths greater than 150m suggests that today's technology is not robust enough to guarantee reliable operation for new deepwater developments. The proposed developments for BP Amoco are located in water depths of between 1200 and 2200 metres. The wells will be high value in terms of cost to deliver and planned production rates. Deep water intervention costs will be high and resultant consequence of failure extremely high. While lessons are undoubtedly being learnt by the control system suppliers, progress is gradual, the learning process painful and ultimately too slow to be effective for the early deepwater developments. The present natural improvement process will not deliver reliable and robust control systems in time for the deepwater developments planned for 2001/2. A step change in performance is required. This paper examines the problems that BP Amoco has encountered in control system performance and the lessons learnt. It presents the steps the industry must take to deliver our future aspirations for subsea facilities performance.