Satellites development

Offshore, subsea satellite development may be a viable alternative to ERD wells. 

This section describes the main types of offshore production platform and satellite development facilities, as well as associated evacuation systems. 

Typically, a Subsea Field Development or Subsea Satellite Development would consist of a cluster of special subsea trees positioned on the seabed with produced fluids piped to the host facility. Water injection, as well as lift gas, can be provided from the host facility. Control of subsea facilities is maintained from the host facility via control umbilicals and subsea control modules. 

Keywords production decline, economic decline, infill drilling, bypassed oil, attic/cellar oil, production potential, coiled tubing, formation damage, cross-flow, side-track, enhanced oil recovery (EOR), steam injection, in-situ combustion, water alternating gas (WAG), debottlenecking, produced water treatment, well intervention, intermittent production, satellite development, host facility, extended reach development, extended reach drilling. 

Whether on land or offshore, the principle of satellite development is the same. A new field is accessed with wells, and an export link is installed to the existing (host) facility. Development is not always easier on land, as environmental restrictions mean that some onshore fields have to be developed using directional drilling techniques (originally associated with offshore developments). A vertical well can be drilled offshore away from the host facility, and the well completed using a subsea wellhead. 

The character of a satellite development has considerable implications for a mature field in decline, but will not always have a positive economic effect on the life of the host. The remainder of this section will address the advantages of incremental development from the perspective of managing decline. 

Initially, if operating costs can be divided based on production throughput, the satellite development project may look attractive. However, the unit costs of the declining host field will eventually exceed income and the satellite development may not be able to support the cost of maintaining the old facilities. If the old facilities can be partly decommissioned, and provision made for part of the abandonment cost, then the satellite development may still look attractive. The satellite development option should always be compared to options for independent development. 

The efforts of the experts from Pivdenny have made it possible for Ukraine to become firmly established in the first three of space powers (after USA and Russia). More than 400 earth satellites developed in Pivdenny have been in space In recent years experts have developed the unique camer-rockets Zenith and Cyclone, capable of taking 4 and 14 tons into orbit, respectively. No other carrier-rockets of this type exist anywhere in the world, so they were selected for the international project Sea Start and Globalstar The NDT experts from Pivdenny have made a great contribution to these development, as practically all the parts and components of the carrier-rockets are subjected to thorough control. 

Japan s Hayabusa. The Boeing Satellite Development Genter bills itself as the world s leading manufacturer of commercial communications satellites, a major supplier of spacecraft and equipment, and as the supplier for weather satellites for the United States and Japan. 

These single satellites are commonly used to develop small reservoirs near to a large field. They are also used to provide additional production from, or peripheral water injection support to, a field which could not adequately be covered by drilling extended reach wells from the platform. 

If the development is so far from shore that direct line of sight communication is not possible, then satellite communications will be installed, with one platform acting as a satellite link for the area. 

Handling production from, and providing support to, a satellite field from an older facility is at first glance an attractive alternative to a separate new development. However, whilst savings may be made in capital investment, the operating cost of large processing facilities may be too much to be carried by production from a smaller field. 

Whatever form of incremental development is considered, the benefits to the host facility should not be gained at the expense of reduced returns for the new project. Incremental and satellite projects can in many situations help to extend the production life of an old field or facilities, but care must be taken to ensure that the economics are transparent. 

Human activity, particularly in the developing world, continues to make it more difficult to sustain the world s biomass growth areas. It has been estimated that tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of tens of thousands of hm per year. Satellite imaging and field surveys show that Brazil alone has a deforestation rate of approximately 8 x 10 hm /yr (5). At a mean net carbon yield for tropical rain forests of 9.90 t/hm yr (4) (4.42 short ton /acreyr), this rate of deforestation corresponds to a loss of 79.2 x 10 t/yr of net biomass carbon productivity. 

A market for electrooptic modulators does not exist as of this writing much of the motivation for developing prototype devices derives from anticipated needs of the information superhighway and the cable television industry. Various corporate research laboratories have produced prototype modulators that can operate to 60 GH2 (7,19—28). Nontechnical issues such as the early implementation of direct (satellite transmission) television may also affect the market success of these electrooptic modulators. 

Atmospheric haze can occur over regions of several thousand square kUometers, caused by the oxidation of widespread SO2 and NO2 to sulfate and nitrate in relatively slow-moving air masses. In the eastern United States, large air masses associated with slow- moving or stagnating anticyclones have become sufficiently contaminated to be called hazy blobs. These blobs have been tracked by satellites as they develop and move across the country (15). 

Figure 16.1 Viruses vary in size and shape from the simplest satellite viruses (a) that need another virus for their replication to the T-even bacteriophages (d) that have developed sophisticated mechanisms for injecting DNA into bacteria. Four different virus particles are shown to scale.

Nickel-Hydrogen, Nickel-Iron, and Nickel-Metal Hydride. First developed for communication satellites in the early 1970s, nickel-hydrogen batteries are durable, require low maintenance, and have a long life expectancy. The major disadvantage is the high initial cost. For these batteries to be a viable option for electric vehicles, mass production techniques will have to be developed to reduce the cost. 

Another reason for choosing the automobile is its development as a mobile office. Cellular phones, laptop computers, and satellite linkups to hand-held conmiiinication devices—all of which arc getting smaller and smaller—have made it possible to be more productive from the roadways. 

In addition to the telegraph, the invention of electricity resulted in the development of other communications systems that paved the way for the modern communications infrastructure. The telegraph was followed by the laying of the transatlantic cable (18.S8), the invention of the telephone (1876), Marconi s wireless telegraph (1897), television (1927), and satellite communications (1957). Although early implementation of each technology was restricted to a minimum level of practical communication, each technology eventually evolved into a mass market for use by businesses and residential customers. 

The photoelectric effect (the creation of an electrical current when light shines on a photosensitive material connected m an electrical circuit) was first obseiwed in 1839 by the French scientist Edward Becqiierel. More than one hundred years went by before researchers in the United States Bell Laboratories developed the first modern PV cell in 1954. Four years later, PV was used to power a satellite in space and has provided reliable electric power for space exploration ever since. 

The first experiments with the thermal electric engine were conducted in Russia in 1929 by its inventor, Valentin P. Glushko, who later became a world-famous authority in rocket propulsion. For more than forty years, the United States and Russia have devoted many resources to research and development of various kinds of EREs. First tested in space by the Russians in 1964, these engines have found some limited applications in modern space technology. For more than two decades Russian weather and communication satellites have regularly used electric rocket engines for orbital stabilization. The first spacecraft to employ ERE for main propulsion was the American asteroid exploration probe Deep Space 1, launched in 1998. The performance of... 

To produce a very thick n-channel device, the resistivity of the silicon must be made relatively high, about 5,000 to 10,000 H-cm, as opposed to the 20-100 H-cm material used in standard n-channel CCDs. Higher resistivity is required for greater penetration depth of the fields produced by the frontside polysilicon wires (penetration depth is proportional to the square root of the resistivity). These thick high resistivity CCDs have been developed for detection of soft x-rays with space satellites and can be procured from E2V and MIT/LL. 

Heterodyne is a very efficient tool for detecting the phase of a "coherent" signal i.e. a signal which has a stable phase relation to the local oscillator. The detector is only limited by the quantum fluctuation of vacuum. This property is common use in coherent lidar. Satellite to satellite optical communications using laser as a local oscillator are under development (Fig. 3). 

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