Present developments West of Shetland are in water depths of up to 500m. However, during the next 10 years there is likely to be an international requirement for technology capable of operating at depths up to 2.5 km. Industry's technology development strategy for deepwater/remote production has to consider the following issues:

• to what extent can production from greater water depths be achieved through use of the present best available technology?
• to what extent will incremental technological innovation cope with increasing depth?
• will there be a requirement for radical, step-out solutions for ultra-deep service and how and when should these be promoted?

The DEEPSTAR project (Deepwater Staged Recovery System), which is presently addressing deepwater production issues in the Gulf of Mexico, aims to achieve production from well-heads at depths of up to 2 km and tied back to shallow water platforms up to approximately 95 km away. Production will be remotely controlled from these platforms with systems in place to handle pumping and any wax and scale deposition from co-mingled, untreated crudes. DEEPSTAR is an example of a cross-industry partnership to implement an integrated production strategy for a remote and difficult area.

Presently for West of Shetland, the preferred production system looks to be the floating production, storage and offshore loading (FPSO) option. Trunk pipelines are unlikely unless there is a significant increase in recoverable reserves coupled with integrated/collaborative production arrangements between the relevant operating companies.

Other key issues in deepwater production include:

• diverless deployment and maintenance of sub-sea equipment;

• reliability of downhole and sub-sea equipment given the often short weather windows for carrying out repairs;

• reliability and safety of facilities, especially moorings and risers, in hostile seas;

• produced fluids management, with fluid handling problems generally exacerbated by cold temperatures in deepwater locations;

• availability of power, especially where low gas:oil ratios occur;

• cost-effective oil and gas exporting facilities.

If small hydrocarbon accumulations are to be produced economically in the deepwater areas West of Shetland, the industry will require innovative but simple production facilities, based on the FPSO concept which can be deployed rapidly and re-used. RTD topics specifically for deepwater developments appear in Section 5.4.