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The Application and Functionalities of a Wet Christmas Tree Applied in Santos

Basin Pre-Salt Cluster

Conference Paper · November 2017

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日本船舶海洋工学会講演会論文集 第 25 号 論文番号 2017A-OS4-4

The Application and Functionalities of a Wet Christmas Tree

Applied in Santos Basin Pre-Salt Cluster

by Cristiano Agostini* Marcio Yamamoto**, Member

Kazuo Miura**

Key Words: Wet Christmas Tree, Subsea Equipment, Pre-Salt

1. INTRODUCTION ➢ Production Well: a well drilled and completed to

The “Wet Christmas Tree” is one of the main subsea produce hydrocarbon in commercial scale;
equipments necessary to produce petroleum and gas natural in ➢ Injection Well: a well drilled and completed to
deep and ultra-deep water. In Brazil, Petrobras uses another injected fluid and/or gas in porous formation.
equipment named “Production Adapter Base” (PAB), which is The fluid can be injected into the reservoir to
installed between the wellhead and WCT. increase the porous pressure, or the fluid can be
Here, it is necessary to clarify that the BOP and WCT are injected in a different porous formation for the
complete different equipments. A lot of people may confuse disposal of such fluids.
the two pieces of subsea equipment because both are installed
on the wellhead. The BOP (Blow-Out Preventer) is a safety 2. 1 Wildcat & Appraisal Well
equipment used during the drilling, completion and workover The wildcat is drilled to identify the reservoirs bearing
of wells. Its main components are rams, the annular BOP’s, hydrocarbons. Data is collected from the reservoir to confirm a
and choke & kill lines. discovery. After all data is collected, the wildcat is abandoned
In case of undesired influx from rock formation fluid into following the regulations.
the wellbore (this undesired influx is named “kick”), the The appraisal well is also drilled to collect data and test the
drilling operation is stopped and the invasive fluid must be reservoir. Usually, buildup test, drill stem test, identify the
removed from the bore to avoid that this kick could develop reservoir’s top and bottom depth, identify the depth of gas-oil
into a blow-out. The “Well Control” (kick removal operation) and oil-water interfaces within the reservoir, gather core or
is carried out using the annular BOP, choke line and other fluid samples and other evaluations may be performed to
pieces of equipments1). reduce the uncertainties regarding the reserves volumes. After
After the subsea well is drilled and completed, the BOP is the tests are finished, the appraisal well must be abandoned.
removed and WCT is installed on the wellhead. The WCT is Both wildcat and appraisal well may be reentered and
used during the production phase of the field. Further, there completed to become a development well.
are two types of development wells, production and injection,
and the WCT is slightly different for each type wells. 2. 2 Development Wells
In this article, we will explain the basic two types of wells After drilled, the well is hole with the well covered by
constructed in deep and ultra-deep waters. Then, we will casings (steel pipes) that are cemented in place and filled with
present the main components of a WCT and PAB and their drilling fluid. Then, the completion must be carried out,
functionalities. removing the drilling fluid and installing all equipment
necessary for production or injection. Fig. 1 shows a schematic
2. TYPE OF WELLS of production well. We can observe that there is the tubing,
The wells can be classified according to their purpose as which is the pipe where the produced fluid is conveyed to the
follow: surface.
- Wildcat: an exploratory well drilled in a previously undrilled
area;
- Appraisal Well: additional well drilled after a discovery to
confirm the volumes of hydrocarbon reserves;
- Development Wells: wells drilled and completed after it was
decided to develop the field. There two types of
development wells:

* University of Sao Paulo, Dept. of Mining & Petroleum Eng.

** The University of Tokyo, GSFS, OTPE
Received 25th September 2017
Read at the autumn meeting 27th and 28th NOV. 2017
©The Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers Fig. 1 Schematic of well completed for production.

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 The annular region between the tubing and casing is isolated Seal”. The BOP/WCT is mechanically fixed using the
from the reservoir by the Packer, and isolated from the surface dog-type latches.
by the Tubing Hanger. Usually, a subsea well uses gas lift as
Artificial Lift Method. Thus, the gas is injected into the
annular and flow into the tubing throughout gas lift valves
installed along the tubing.
The tubing and the access to the annular have a safety valve
named Subsurface Safety Valves, which are installed below the
tubing hanger. In addition, the Christmas Tree, composed by a
set of valves, is installed on the wellhead.

3. MAIN COMPONENTS
In Brazil, Petrobras uses two pieces of subsea equipment,
the Production Adapter Base (PAB) and Wet Christmas Tree
(WCT), that are installed on the subsea wellhead system of a
development well (Fig. 3). In this section, we will present
further detail about the subsea wellhead system, PAB and
WCT.

Fig. 3 Example of subsea wellhead System3).

Fig. 2 Schematic of PAB and WCT to be installed on a

subsea well head system2).

Fig. 4 Schematic of the connector.

3. 1 Subsea Wellhead System 3. 2 Production Adapter Base

A subsea well is drilled in phases. After a phase is drilled, a
The PAB is a subsea equipment installed during the well
casing is assembled piece by piece, run into the open well and
completion. It is installed on the subsea wellhead system (Fig.
cemented in place (in some cases, the first casing named
2). Then the tubing can be installed and the tubing hanger is
conductor may not be cemented).
fixed within the PAB.
Fig. 3 shows the main components of the subsea wellhead
Fig. 5 shows the schematic of the assembly PAB and WCT.
system. On the top of the conductor, there is a piece equipment
We can see that the several auxiliary lines are crossing the
called Low-Pressure Housing. The conductor is installed into
tubing hanger parallel to the tubing. One of the lines is
the well, then the second phase is drilled. The second casing
connected to the subsurface safety valve, which is a normally
named “Surface Casing” has the “High-Pressure Housing”
closed valve. Thus, this auxiliary line brings the hydraulic
connected on its top end. The High-Pressure Housing is fixed
pressure to open such safety valves.
within the Low-Pressure Housing. An “Annular Sealing
The other auxiliary lines are found only in the Pre-Salt’s
System” avoid any leakage from the annular area between
development wells. They go all the way down to the reservoir
conductor and surface casing. The other casings have the
depth. Among the lines, there are the lines for the injection of
“Casing Hanger” on the top end, which are installed within the
inhibitors, especially against scaling, into the tubing the bore.
High-Pressure Housing.
There the hydraulic lines to drive the “intelligent completion
On the top of the High-Pressure Housing, there is the
valves”. And there is a line connected to the permanent
connector where the BOP/WCT must be connected. Fig. 4
downhole pressure gauge.
shows the details about the connection of the BOP/WCT. The
seal between the connector and BOP/WCT is done by the “VX

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 sent from surface to the subsea equipment using a control
umbilical (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Example of the cross-section of an umbilical line4).

The subsea hydraulic control fluids used to drive the valves
are usually water based what means the fluid can be disposed
Fig. 5 Main valves of a production Wet Christmas Tree and in the ocean with no ecological impact. The water based
Production Adapter Base3). hydraulic fluid is composed by di-mineralized water, MEG
One innovation of the PAB is the “Production Mandrel” (anti-frozen) and other additives.
where the “Vertical Connection Module” (VCM) of the To enhance the availability of the WCT, beside the remote
flowline will be connected. In the past, the lay vessel needed to operated valves, the WCT has duplicated valves that are
be beside the drilling platform during the WCT installation. activated by ROV. Fig. 2 shows the position of the panels
The flowline connection to the WCT was done onboard the where are located the levers to activate such valves.
drilling platform. Then the WCT was lowered down for the
installation and the lay vessel was paying flowline 3. 2 Gas Lift
simultaneously. The gas lift is an artificial lift method widely used in
Using the VCM, the lay vessel can make the connection offshore fields. Comparing with other methods, the gas lift is
between PAB and flowline on the sea floor. It is not necessary very robust because it does not have rotating parts within the
to retrieve the equipment to the surface. The flowline is well (the gas compressor is located onboard the production
lowered down hanged using a special running tool and platform) and, during maintenance, the gas lift valves may be
installed on the Production Mandrel. Other advantage is that replaced without the removal of the whole production tubing.
the WCT can be removed for a well intervention/workover, In production operation, the WCT’s service line may inject
and the flowlines do not need to be removed. gas (nitrogen gas or natural gas) into the annular to be used as
the gas lift. The injected gas flow into the tubing throughout
3. 2 Wet Christmas Tree the gas lift valves installed along the production tubing (Fig. 7).
The WCT is composed by a set of valves that control the The gas reduces the density of conveyed fluid making easier
flow stream and access to the tubing and annular (Fig. 5). It is for the reservoir pressure to push the fluid up to the surface.
important to remind that Petrobras does not use choke valve at Beside the density reduction, the kinetic energy of the gas also
the WCT to control the flow rate of produced fluid; the choke helps to push the fluid upward.
valve is located onboard the platform.
For a production well, the green pipes in Fig. 5 convey the
produced fluid to the flowlines where there are three valves:
master valve M1, wing valve W1 and swab valve S1. Further,
the orange and white pipes are the service/gas lift line that is
connect to the annular area between the production tubing and
casing. In the same way, the service/gas lift line has three
valves: master valve M2, wing valve W2 and swab valve S2. In
addition, there is an annulus intervention valve AIV, which is
located at the PAB, that is closed when the WCT is removed
during well intervention/workover to avoid any leakage into or
from the annular. When it is necessary, a cross over valve XO
may connect the service line to the production line.
Fig. 7 Schematic of a production well equipped with gas lift.
4. FUNCTIONALITIES
3. 1 Valves Controls 3. 3 Flow Assurance
The WCT has a Subsea Electrical Module (SEM) receives a
During the production, hydrate and wax can accumulated
control signal from surface. Then SEM activates the solenoid
inside the flowlines and risers due to the low temperature of
drive of a pilot valve. The hydraulic power from the pilot
the sea bottom. The accumulation of hydrate and wax reduces
valve will actuate on the valves shown by Fig. 5.
the production flow rate and eventually may completely clog
The control signal, hydraulic power and electrical power are
the subsea lines.

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 For example, the accumulated hydrate can be dissolved In this article, we presented some of the key components of
circulating methanol, ethanol or glycol within the production the of the subsea wellhead system, PAB and WCT.
lines. In this case, both master valves M1 and M2 are closed The PAB is where the tubing hanger is installed. It also has
and the cross-over valve XO is opened (Fig. 5). The methanol the production mandrels where the production line, service/gas
or other fluid is injected through the service line and lift line and control umbilical are installed. In addition, the
cross-over valve XO until the production lines. WCT is composed by a set of valves (redundant valves
3. 4 Safety Barriers operated remotely or by ROV) to control the production and
The concept of “Barrier Integrated Set” (BIS) is defined as a the access to the tubing and annular between tubing and
“set of one or more barriers with the aim of preventing casing.
unintentional fluid flow from a permeable interval (formation From the point of view of application, the WCT primary
or pay zone) to surface, considering all the possible paths”5). application is to control the production. The WCT and PAB
Fig. 8 shows graphically the BIS definition. also has access to the annulus what it is used for the injection
of gas lift. Further, it may use to circulate inhibitors or other
chemicals to solve flow assurance problems. Last, another key
point is that WCT and PAB has several safety barriers, which
may compose the BIS.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge the Japan Society of
Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers for the support to the
cooperative research Brazil-Japan.

REFERENCES
Fig. 8 Safety barriers integratedset5). 1) O. L. A. Santos: Well Control in Drilling, Blucher, in
This concept can be used in a subsea production well3). Portuguese, 2013.
Usually, two independent BIS must be used to assure the 2) R. Rodrigues et al.: System for Direct Vertical Connection
safety during the operation. Between Contiguous Subsea Equipment and Method of
Fig. 9 shows the two independent BIS applied for a subsea Installation of Said Connection, US Patent Application
production well during the production phase. Fig. 9b shows Publication, US 2006/0231266, 2006.
that PAB, WCT’s master valve and tubing hanger are safety 3) T. C. da Fonseca: A Methodology for Production
barriers included in the BIS. Development Wells Integrity Analysis, MSc thesis, in
Portuguese, University of Campinas, 2012.
4) J. Hoffman, et al.: The Stones Project: subsea, umbilical,
riser and flowline systems, in Proc. OTC 2017, Houston,
OTC-27569-MS, 2017.
5) K. Miura, et al.: Characterization of Operational Safety in
Offshore Oil Well, Journal of Petroleum Science &
Engineering, Vol. 51, pp. 111-126, 2006.

Fig. 9 Example of two independent BIS used in a subsea

production well: (a) this BIS is composed by impermeable
formation, cement, liner, packer, all components of the
production tubing up to subsurface safety valve; (b) shallower
impermeable formation, cement, casing, high-pressure housing,
VX sealing, PAB, tubing hanger, and master valve3).

5. SUMMARY
During the production of subsea well in the Pre-Salt, two
pieces of equipment are installed on the wellhead: Production
Adapter Base (PAB) and the Wet Christmas Tree (WCT).

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