Vito Project Overview

Abstract

In 2009, the Vito field was discovered in more than 4,000 ft of water approximately 150 miles offshore from New Orleans, Louisiana. The project produces from reservoirs nearly 30,000 feet below sea level. This paper introduces the challenges of the multidiscipline project from a project management perspective and to compliment and introduce the several other Vito Floating Production System (FPS) papers submitted to OTC 2023 which are listed in the references of this papar. The original Vito project execution strategy was to replicate the mega-project of Appomattox. As the industry and market began to change in 2015, the project faced significant financial hurdles, and the project team decided to refresh the design concept to reduce cost and simplify. The new design included a smaller FPS, simplified operating model, and simplified subsea equipment. This allowed the project to open the contracting strategy to include more options including different fabrication sites, smaller offshore installation vessels, and include more vendor options in various disciplines. The Vito host, subsea system, and export were redesigned with the mindset of "simpler = safer = cost competitive". The host was radically reduced and limited to a 10,000 st single deck lift enabling simplified integration and pre-commissioning at the ground level to optimize work pace. The mooring system was streamlined to remove on-vessel winching equipment and storage, simplifying the hull and utilizing common anchor handler vessels for host installation. A simplified Subsea Umbilical Riser and Flowline (SURF) design was competitively scoped by focusing on minimum amount of equipment to safely gather and transport the fluids and minimum amount of equipment to manage flow assurance risks. The export pipelines leveraged industry capabilities to simplify the design and contracting approach. The simplified minimum technical scope for the topsides and subsea reduced operations personnel needed offshore and upskilling the operations staff enabled a simplified overall design concept. The world is dynamic and when changes are extreme, mega-projects must be reworked and mobilized for the new environment. Vito project is a story of change, simplification, and adaptation.