The Frade Development – An Evolution from Marginal to Economic, and it Wasn’t Just Because of Higher Oil Price!

Nadeem Parvez and Jeff Bergeron
Chevron

The Frade field, a heavy oil, deep water asset located in the northern Campos basin has historically been labeled a marginally economic asset due to a wide array of issues – specifically geologic and geophysical complexities leading to significant subsurface uncertainty. Additionally, producing heavy oil assets in deepwater lend additional risk elements that serve to hinder significant economic investment – particularly for smaller to moderate sized development projects.

The presentation will describe the approach used by the Frade Project Team to facilitate better decision making at critical stages of project development. Key elements of the approach involve:

• A multidisciplinary collocated team to ensure cross functional alignment
• Incorporating uncertainty in asset evaluation and development cost modeling-Probabilistic Analysis so as to ensure acceptable project economics
• Application of Decision Analysis
• A structured Decision Process

The presentation will show that robust Front End Loading (FEL) is critical to drive higher quality investment decisions in marginally economic projects.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90062©2006 AAPG Hedberg Research Conference, Veracruz, Mexico