Stones

Stones is the world’s deepest oil and gas project, operating in around 2,900 metres (9,500 feet) of water in an ultra-deep area of the US Gulf of Mexico. The project started production in September 2016 from a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. The FPSO connects to subsea infrastructure which produces oil and gas from reservoirs nearly 30,000 feet below sea level. Stones is Shell’s second producing field in the Lower Tertiary geologic frontier in the Gulf of Mexico, following Perdido in 2010.

Key facts

Location: Gulf of Mexico, USA; 320 kilometres (200 miles) south-west of New Orleans, Louisiana

Water depth: 2,900 metres (9,500 feet)

Interests: Shell 100% owner and operator

Field: Stones field, discovered in 2005

Production: An estimated 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day at peak production.

Project overview

Shell announced the final investment decision to develop the Stones field in May 2013. Work then began to construct the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel and subsea infrastructure. The FPSO, called Turritella, set sail from a shipyard in Singapore in October 2015 and arrived in the Gulf of Mexico in January 2016.

Development of the Stones field began with two subsea production wells tied back to Turritella. Six further production wells will be added later, as well as a multi-phase system to pump oil and gas from the seabed to the FPSO, increasing recoverable volumes and production rates. All eight wells will ultimately be connected to Turritella. The reservoir depth is around 8,077 metres (26,500 feet) below sea level, and 5,181 metres (17,000 feet) below the mud line.

Watch how unprecedented ingenuity and innovation are delivering energy from the Stones field, 2,896 metres (9,500 feet) beneath the US Gulf of Mexico.

Read the transcript

Title: Stones: Where Ingenuity And Innovation Intersect

Duration: 2:14 minutes

Description:

A brief overview of Shell’s Stones project including its unique technology for deep water production, and its record of safe construction.

Shell’s Stones Project Transcript

[Background music plays]
Moderate tempo piano music

[Video footage]
Aerial view of the open water of the Gulf of Mexico near the Stones site.

[Text displays]
Stones: Where Ingenuity And Innovation Intersect

[Voice of Narrator]

200 miles southwest of New Orleans, in the Gulf of Mexico is the Stones field…

[Animation sequence]
Map showing location of the Stones field south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico.

Narrator

…an ultra deepwater discovery that’s spurred unprecedented innovation.

[Video footage]
Aerial view of the “Turritella”, a floating production and storage vessel.

[Title]

Ian Silk, VP for Deepwater Projects, Shell

Ian Silk

The Stones Project is the first FPSO, floating production, that we’ve put into the Gulf of Mexico. It is production from the deepest water anywhere in the world.

[Video footage]
Aerial view of the “Turritella”, a floating production and storage vessel.

Narrator

The subsea infrastructure for Stones is located beneath 9,500 feet of water, a record-breaking water depth for an oil and gas production facility.

[Animation sequence]
Animation of the subsea equipment located under the Turritella, including mooring lines and oil production piping, or “risers”.

[Animation sequence]
Animation of the oil production equipment located on the sea floor.

Narrator

The Stones wells produce from reservoirs nearly 30,000 ft below sea level. But, these are not the only milestones for this historic development.

[Title]

Amir Salem, Construction Engineer, SBM

Amir Salem

Stones, as a project, comes up with a solution to many of the problems that we face.

[Background music]
Piano music ends

[Video footage]
Two Shell employees and an SBM employee watching monitors in the control room of the Turritella as the ship connects to the buoy at the Stones field.

[Animation sequence]
Animation of the lazy wave risers between the ship and the sea floor

[Background music plays]
Moderate tempo music with piano and strings

Narrator

Turning ideas into innovation, the Stones team pioneered the combination of steel lazy wave risers with a disconnectable buoy.

[Animation sequence]
Animation of the buoy disconnecting from the ship and then dropping under the water below the ship. Animation continues with views of the ship sailing away from the buoy and the marker left where it is located.

Narrator

This game-changing application enables the FPSO to sail away during severe weather.

[Title]

Blake Moore, Stones FPSO Manager, Shell

Blake Moore

Most of the time FPSOs transit to site, take off their rudder, take off their propeller, they don’t need it anymore. Not us. What we need to do is we need to be able to disconnect and travel around to get away from hurricanes.

[Video footage]
Aerial footage of the buoy, visible at the surface of the water. A view aboard the ship as it sails in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Title]

Jeremy Dean, Stones Buoy Construction Lead, Shell

Jeremy Dean

The Stones Project is tackling new challenges in deep water with innovative concepts. It takes a company like Shell to take on these challenges and then deliver the project safely.

[Video footage]
An SBM employee and a Shell employee observing the connection point for the buoy on the ship.

[Background music continues]
Moderate tempo piano music

[Video footage]
Time lapse video of construction of the ship in a Singapore ship yard. Welders constructing the ship. A silhouette shot, during construction, of two men rising on a hydraulic lift behind a large opening in the bow of the ship. A series of shots of Shell supervisors talking to a construction workers. A crane barge lifting the large turret that is being installed as the buoy connection point on the ship. The buoy being lifted into the Gulf of Mexico from a ship. An aerial view directly overhead of the ship on location.

Narrator

To date, the Stones team has logged more than 22 million man-hours of work with an outstanding safety record; a testament to the commitment of the first class team that worked safely and responsibly to unlock energy resources in a new frontier.

[Video footage]
A view inside the moonpool of the ship where the buoy connects to the ship.

Ian Silk

The water depth that we’re working in is an extraordinary achievement. This is an industry that first moved offshore probably only really 30 years ago, so in 30 years we’ve gone from literally putting our toes into the water to producing from 10,000 feet of water depth. It’s totally amazing.

[Video footage]
An aerial of the Turritella on location in the water of the Stones field with two smaller support ships nearby.

[Background music]
Transition from the end of the theme music to the Shell logo music.

[Visual transition]
The previous video dissolves to a white screen and then to the closing graphic.

[Graphic displays]
The Shell pecten on a white background

Technology

An FPSO design was chosen to produce oil and gas safely and efficiently from the Stones ultra deep-water field. Tankers transport oil from Turitella to US refineries, while a pipeline transports gas.

Stones uses a special type of flexible pipe, known as a steel lazy wave riser, to carry oil and gas to Turritella for processing. Shell pioneered steel lazy wave risers, which have additional buoyancy creating an arched bend in the pipes between the seafloor and the surface. This bend helps to absorb the motion of the FPSO and boosts production performance at extreme depths.

The FPSO also features a turret into which fits a disconnectable buoy carrying mooring lines and risers from the well system. The turret and buoy design allows the vessel to turn with the wind during normal weather conditions. If a heavy storm or hurricane approaches, the vessel is able to disconnect from the buoy and sail to safer waters. The Stones project represents the first use of a disconnectable buoy configured with steel lazy wave risers to unlock oil resources in ultra-deep waters.

Shell has more than a dozen deep-water FPSOs around the world but Turritella is the first FPSO in use in the Gulf of Mexico.

Society and environment

For decades, the US Gulf of Mexico has been a heartland of energy production. Thousands of Shell employees and contractors work each day to safely find, develop and produce the Gulf of Mexico’s vast oil and gas resources to help power our lives. Safety is crucial to this work. Across all of Shell’s operations, we strive to achieve what we call Goal Zero – no harm to people or the environment.

Shell has been a part of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast for more than 100 years. We are committed to helping shape a positive future for the region through our business activities, social investment programs and employee volunteer work. We partner with many non-profit organisations to support conservation, education in science, engineering, technology and maths (STEM) and economic development projects across the Gulf Coast. Our employees also spend thousands of hours volunteering each year to help rebuild damaged homes, protect and restore Louisiana’s coast, and inspire the state’s next generation of scientists, engineers and leaders.