This document describes the TOPS (TOPS Offshore Production Systems) concept for offshore oil and gas production. TOPS aims to eliminate conventional rigs and platforms by using a ship-based system for continuous exploration, production, processing, and transport. The system would include a mooring tower, subsea well template, and a converted tanker ship equipped for drilling, production, and initial processing directly at the offshore location. The goal is to significantly reduce costs and risks compared to traditional offshore infrastructure.

1. TOPS Offshore
Production Systems
(TOPS)
4th April 2011
Thursday, 28 July 11

2. Contact
• Inventor: Pat Haynes
• Organisations: A.P.Haynes Consulting/
Eboroil Ltd
• Norwegian Org nr 986455744
• Address: Jon Smørsv 4A, 1397 Nesøya
• Tel: +47 66847068 Mob Tel: +47 45275598
• Skype name : eboroil
• E-mail eboroil@me.com
Thursday, 28 July 11

3. The TOPS Concept
• The average water depth in the world is
3795m and this is a solution for the future
• all offshore oil and gas will based on having
a continuous process including exploration,
production, and refining and for certain
fields, transport ship (TOPS)
• most of the patents have lapsed
Thursday, 28 July 11

4. TOPS Eliminates
• delay in appraisal and development
• conventional rigs and platforms
• refineries
• over balanced drilling as per the BP GOM
blow-out
• significantly lowers blow out and pollution risk
in arctic areas and in deep water
Thursday, 28 July 11

5. Schedule
• Site survey and studies -
15 months
• Construct Mooring
tower - six months
• Install riser tower - 1
day weather window
• Pre-Install production
template - 60 days
• Drill - 15 plus days
• Start Production
5
Thursday, 28 July 11

6. Preliminaries
• establish bottom conditions, sea water
properties as well as wave and current
profile at the site (GEMS)
• establish if affecting marine mammals,
seabed corals and migratory bird paths
(NPL)
• shoot 3D seismic of the area
• establish that when the reservoir is de-
pressurised that there is no earthquake risk
(Geomec)
Thursday, 28 July 11

7. Components
• Mooring tower in steel in shallower waters
and Titanium in deep water (Mercon)
• Well template with co-mingled production,
water and gas injection services and heavy
oil splitting services together with subsea
processing (FMC/others ?)
• Aframax sized TOPS with dp 2 providing
direct well access for drilling and
intervening throughout the field life
Thursday, 28 July 11

8. Exploration Phase
• Design site specific TOPS mooring tower in
steel/Ti with 2000 ton barytes ballasted
base and hydrogen generators to suit
location (Mercon with SBM as
subcontractor)
• Install ocean energy generators, template
and flowlines (Technip/others?)
• Mobilise the TOPS ship and drill first well
• In event of dry well redeploy equipment
Thursday, 28 July 11

9. Financing
• in 1980 TOPS was based on paying the
shipowner 20% rate of return on the equity
in the original acquisition cost of the
reuseable components of the project
• The oilco requires to pay for the lower
buoy, the installation work and 90 days of
operations
• The leasing partners in TOPS are sought
Thursday, 28 July 11

10. TOPS Mooring Tower
• 2000 tons of barytes ballast in the base
• Upper buoy contains ballast tanks to allow
for installation and removal - reuseable
• Lower buoy at minus 160 ft have hose take
offs to the TOPS ship - site specific
( Contitech)
• Ocean power to generate H2
(Magnomatics/ITM Power)
Thursday, 28 July 11

11. TOPS Template (FMC)
• 4 by 8 on 8’6” centres well slots
• each Christmas tree to incorporate shear
and blind rams and to be connected to a
co-mingling distribution manifold on the
central two rows for production at the
flowing wellhead pressure of the best well
and subsea separation.
• use duplex acoustic controls with hydraulic
accumulators on the template
Thursday, 28 July 11

12. Subcontractors to FMC
• Advance Energy Systems to crack heavy oil
to C13 and gases as appropriate
• Nemo Engineering - pipeline sledges
• Acoustic controls - used Cameron
successfully before and Kongsberg
• Water injection pumps, artificial lift, gas
injection and compression - Clavis are
developing a unique pump technology
Thursday, 28 July 11

13. TOPS
• station keeping by Dp2 with constant
tension mooring winch working at between
70 and 90 tons (Huismann/AXTech)
• Converted Aframax or OBO which can
have LNG tanks put in the holds for later
life operations (previous model in Eboroil jv
m.v.Arctic which was 25,000 dwt)
• Receive oil, gas, water and distribute oil,
gas, drill cuttings removal and pigging
services
Thursday, 28 July 11

14. Drilling
• 30” conductors installed on all wells in the
construction phase (Technip)
• use Casing Drilling technology to drill
underbalanced in a closed loop to contain
kicks (Schlumberger)
• use composite cable based push/pull
wireline (supplier yet to be chosen) to
retrieve bits etc
Thursday, 28 July 11

15. Drilling Operations
• Mount Helirig on the Port side of the ship
to work in the lee based on heading bow
quarter into the weather
• Have top drive and coil for intervention
• Recover and treat drill cuttings with
biodegradable oil solvent and dump cuttings
• have slip joint design by Aker accepted by
Schlumberger
Thursday, 28 July 11

16. Thoughts
• Stern into weather towards SALM
• Accommodation at stern
• Shottels bow and stern instead of Becker/
other rudders such as Schilling from main
engines
• New build
•
Thursday, 28 July 11

17. Process plant
• Have main processing subsea for separation
of oil, gas and water
• Mount equipment 3 m above cargo holds
• Have surface oil treatment as heating to 80
deg C to remove metals with activated
charcoal and then crack at 400 deg C to
diesel product specifications with a catalyst
• Have chemical injection and pigging services
Thursday, 28 July 11

18. Maximise Oil Recovery
• Continuous monitoring of reservoir behaviour and
optimisation of offtake using multiple realisation of
static and dynamic reservoir models.
• Continuously drill and intervene guided by 4D
seismic
• To inject gas super critically until reservoir until
dry
• Inject cation rich sea water to recover oil prior to
low surface tension water to break up macro oil in
water emulsions
Thursday, 28 July 11

19. Ship Operations
• Have Captain in charge of all operations
• Change crew every three weeks and
recharge activated charcoal using the dry
evacuation system (GEC)
• Have unidirectional currents and wave
energy generate hydrogen for dp system
(Magnomatics/Pulse Tidal/Green Fuel/ITM
Power)
• Be a zero emission ship
• Have shuttle tankers use a Remora unit
Thursday, 28 July 11

20. Ocean Energy
• Install wave energy
generators to
provide power in
storms
• Install
unidirectional
current generators
for mid-water
installations for
constant power
load
• install in 90deg arc
Thursday, 28 July 11

21. Contingencies
• Have two dp UT 705 offshore platform support
vessels with active stability tanks and acoustic
responders to shut down the template in case
of problems
• Have oil skimming with a biodegradable oil
dispersant, bulk barytes, cement, fi-fi services,
anti collision radar, dry evacuation transfer
services
• in the arctic amphibious life-boats and infra red
satellite based radar to navigate in minimum ice
Thursday, 28 July 11

22. The First Project
• The Irish Authorities have been approached
to develop Barryroe in conjunction with
the current Option holders
• All contracts will be at cost plus 20% and
there will be no bidding with technical
excellence deciding the contract award
• Intend to work with Lloyds Registry and
have IOM flag
Thursday, 28 July 11