VILLARINO, RAY JASON A.

BSPE 5A
Assignment in Subsea Engineering Technology
Types of Christmas Tree:
There are two type of subsea Christmas tree. These are the vertical Christmas trees and
horizontal Christmas trees.
1. VERTICAL CHRISTMAS TREE
Vertical trees are manufactured in single bore and dual-
bore configurations and pressure ratings are between 5,000
and 15,000 psi. The body of a Christmas tree can be made of
carbon steel, low-alloy steel, or stainless steel depending on
the operating environment. The master valves are located
above the tubing hanger and swab valves together with
master valves are stacked vertically. The production and
annulus bore lays vertically on the body of the tree. The well
completion is finished before installing the vertical Xmas
tree. Since the tubing hanger rests on the wellhead, Xmas tree
can be recovered without having to recover the downhole
completion. This type is generally applied in subsea fields
due to their flexibility of installation and operation.
Advantages
 Vertical trees require only one time BOP nipple down.
 No wireline plug to be removed from a tree for a well intervention program.
 Better for fields that don’t expect to do workover or have small chance of doing the
workover
 Simpler and cheaper to change a vertical tree when compared to a horizontal tree
Disadvantages
 If the workover operations such as recompletion, changing tubing, installing extra
downhole tools, etc. are required, a vertical tree must be removed in order to install BOP
on top of the well.

2. HORIZONTAL CHRISTMAS TREE

A subsea horizontal tree is designed so that all flow
control valves are outside the central wellbore. A
tubing hanger is located inside of a subsea horizontal
tree body. A horizontal tree is well known as a
workover friendly tree because it offers easy access for
tubing retrieval because the valves are not located at the
centre of the wellbore. In contrast to vertical Xmas tree,
the valves of horizontal Xmas tree are located on the
lateral sides of the horizontal Xmas tree, allowing for
easy well intervention and tubing recovery, thus this
type of tree is very feasible for the wells that need many
interventions. The tubing hanger is installed in the tree
body instead of the wellhead. Consequently, the tree is
installed onto the wellhead before completion of the well.
Advantages
 Better for fields that expect to do workover quite often because a tree does not need to be
removed.
  Can have a larger bore tubing for a horizontal tree than a vertical tree
 Lower total height of a tree
Disadvantages
 Less flexibility for operation if the delivery of a tree is delayed.
 Two runs for subsea BOP and riser are required
 Completion string must be removed if replacement of a tree is needed.
 Two wireline plugs (crown plugs) must be removed before starting any well intervention
program. There have been several cases when people have faced a lot of difficulty for
removing the plugs. This can lead to extra time and cost for the operation.
Typical subsea well construction sequence
Vertical xmas tree Horizontal xmas tree
Spud wheel. Drill top hole Spud well. drill top hole
Run BOP stack on marine riser Deploy BOP stack on marine riser
Drill to TD. Run & cement liner Drill to TD. run and cement liner
Run downhole completion & tbg hanger Install temporary barriers
Install temporary barriers Recover BOP stack
Recover BOP stack Deploy and test xmas tree
Deploy and test xmas tree Redeploy BOP stack on marine riser
Remove temporary barriers Remove temporary barriers
Connect flowline jumpers and flying leads Run downhole completion and tbg hanger
Flow test well Test completion and interfaces
Recover intervention package Flow test well
Run xmas tree cap Install TH plug and internal tree cap
Commission well from platform Connect flowline jumpers and flying leads
Install protective cover Recover intervention string
Recover BOP stack
Commission well from platform
Install protective cover

Subsea Tree Considerations (Vertical vs Horizontal)

 The cost of a vertical tree is similar to a horizontal tree based on similar specification.

 Changing out horizontal trees is more cost and time consuming than replacing a vertical tree
because whole completion string must be removed. Vertical subsea trees can be replaced by
using rig or specially equipped light well intervention vessels. However, horizontal subsea
trees are required only rig to replace the trees. This results in big expenditure. Therefore,
horizontal trees should be used when there is very low possibility that a tree must be changed
out. It is very imperative to do extensive probabilistic study prior to selecting the horizontal
trees.

 Two BOP and riser runs are required for a horizontal tree, whereas only one time of BOP and
riser run is needed for a vertical tree.

 For wells requiring several completion changes during the life cycle of a well, a horizontal
subsea tree will save time and cost since there is no need to remove a tree or flow lines.
Modern vertical trees are connected to a flow base which allows the flowlines to remain
connected when removing the tree.

References: http://www.drillingformulas.com/vertical-subsea-tree-vs-horizontal-subsea-tree/
http://nfatmala.blogspot.com/2016/02/horizontal-and-vertical-x-mas-tree.html
https://andiniputridl.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/horizontal-and-vertical-xmas/