Project Phase
Concept Select, Field Development, pre-FID
Disciplines
Subsurface & Reservoir, Front End Development Engineers, Subsea Discipline Engineers, Process Engineers, Project Services
Location
Offshore West Africa
Service
Advisory
Summary
Infinity supported an energy developer in selecting the development concept for an offshore West African block, building and comparing multiple options including tie-back to an existing platform and a standalone floating production solution.
Overview
The block had been appraised but not developed, and the operator needed to understand which route to production actually stood up against the subsurface it was based on. Rather than testing a single preferred concept, Infinity developed a set of genuinely different options in parallel and compared them on a consistent basis. That included tying back to existing infrastructure, where the constraint is host availability and interface risk, and a standalone floating production option, where the constraint is capital exposure against a limited resource base.
Objective
- Develop multiple credible development concepts from the subsurface basis to a comparable level of definition
- Assess each option against capital exposure, schedule and operability
- Test host tie-back feasibility including interface and availability risk
- Recommend the concept offering the best balance of value and deliverability
Concepts Compared
Recommended Route
West Africa
Key findings
- Tie-back and standalone options carried fundamentally different risk profiles that a single-metric comparison would have obscured
- Host facility availability and remaining life were decisive, not the subsea engineering
- Working from the reservoir profiles rather than a peak rate, and optimising the concept around the resource base, improved the economics
- Interface and commercial exposure to a third-party host required assessment alongside the technical work
- Early concept comparison avoided committing engineering spend to a route that would not have survived scrutiny
Differentiator
Infinity works from the subsurface outwards. Concepts are built from the reservoir profiles and the recovery basis rather than sized to a headline rate, and competing options are developed to the same level of definition before being compared rather than validating a preferred option. That approach takes more effort early but produces a selection the operator can defend, which matters most on marginal developments where the margin for error is small.
Outcome
The operator was given a properly comparable set of development options and a recommended route with the reasoning documented. The work sits within a wider body of Infinity concept and field development studies delivered across West Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean and the North Sea.
Get in touch today