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OTC Recognizes Ronald Yeung and Petrobras’ Buzios Project for Distinguished Achievement

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Total’s Egina Project Receives Special Citation

Houston, Texas, USA (12 February 2020) – The 2020 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) Board of Directors selects Professor Ronald W. Yeung, Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, as the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals, Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) for its Búzios Project as the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, Organizations, and Institutions, and a Special Citation awarded to Total Upstream Nigeria Limited for its Egina Project.

Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals
Yeung will be awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals, recognizing him for his 45-year career in educating a generation of naval architects and ocean engineers, as well as, his fundamental research in ship and offshore hydrodynamics. Over this period, he has supervised 28 doctoral dissertations in the marine field, more than 100 master’s students and visiting scholars, and published more than 190 articles. Yeung's advisees have received 16 U.S. and international Best-Paper awards, with many of them active in academia and the ocean industry.

Yeung received his doctorate in engineering, master’s in naval architecture and bachelor's in mechanical engineering all from the University of California, Berkeley where he currently serves as a distinguished emeritus professor. He also served as an associate and assistant professor in the Ocean Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In between his master's and doctoral studies, he staffed as a naval architect in Litton Ship Systems in Culver City, California.

He co-founded a graduate group in Ocean Engineering to transition the Berkeley Naval Architecture and Offshore Engineering Department in 1997/1998 to a new era, which allowed the university to continue granting masters and doctoral degrees in ocean engineering. This new program joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2005 to be one of its 10 major fields of study and has thrived in its attraction to undergraduate and graduate students. Additionally, Yeung spearheaded an effort to work with the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) to establish an ABS-endowed chair and ocean-technology graduate fellowships in ocean engineering at Berkeley in 2012.

Yeung has contributed an extensive amount of original research to the naval architectural and ocean engineering fields. Beginning in 1992, his most prominent research spanned from vortex methods development and roll-motion ship hydrodynamics, to his recent endeavor: moon-pool resonance with a two-layer fluid and ocean renewable energy via wind and waves. His contributions allowed room for further advancements and understanding, leading to exciting innovations and developments.

Apart from research and education, Yeung has dedicated his time to serving on advisory boards for multiple organizations and educational institutions, including the Journal of Ocean Engineering and Marine Energy, the Journal of Hydrodynamics, the University of Michigan Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering program, and the Center for Ocean Engineering at MIT.  In addition to receiving the OTC 2020 Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals, Yeung is decorated with many other honors, including the recipient of the SNAME Kenneth Davidson Gold Medal (2004), the Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OOAE/OMAE) Division of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Lifetime Achievement Award for significant contribution to hydromechanics and ocean engineering (2016), and the Inaugural American Bureau of Shipping Endowed Chair in Ocean Engineering at UC Berkeley (2012). A Special Symposium with 65 papers on offshore and ship hydrodynamics was held in his honor by his peers in OMAE-2012. Yeung retired from formal teaching in fall 2017 but remains active in several areas of marine research.


Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, Organizations, and Institutions
This year’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, Organizations, and Institutions will be awarded to Petrobras for its Búzios Project.

The Petrobras-led Búzios Project will be recognized for the use of technological advancements in extreme conditions, leaving a legacy to the offshore oil and gas industry. The Búzios Field is located in the ultra-deepwater, 6,560 feet of the Santos Basin pre-salt, roughly 130 miles from the Rio de Janeiro coast.

Petrobras has, for the first time in the offshore industry, installed four floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) units in a single field within a timespan of only 11 months. Each FPSO has the capacity to process 150,000 barrels of oil per day and to compress and re-inject 212 million standard cubic feet per day of associated gas. Together, the four production systems have a total of 19 injection wells and 21 production wells.

This project has many firsts. It is the first to deploy eight-inch production flexible risers and flowlines in a definitive ultra-deepwater project allowing for increased production. It is the first water and gas simultaneous injection manifold ready to operate in ultra-deepwater. It is the first optimized 20 lines torpedo pile mooring system for FPSOs in ultra-deepwater. It is the first intensive use of intelligent completions for a total fluid loss scenario. Along with these firsts, the project also featured a new riser system configuration development approach, and the largest 3D ocean bottom nodes acquisition in deep waters.

This project pushed current industry limits with innovative solutions and the adoption of new technologies, which will provide an extensive technology legacy to the offshore oil and gas industry. The Búzios development has not yet finished. By 2022, the fifth production unit will be deployed allowing the total production capacity to reach 750,000 barrels per day.

Special Citation
Total Upstream Nigeria Limited has been awarded a Special Citation for its Egina project, which executed a sustainable deepwater project using local engineering, project management, yards and support services providing the foundation for future projects.

The Egina project is the largest FPSO to date in the Total s. a. Group Fleet of FPSO and the first deep-water project in Nigeria after the 2010 Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act. This project provided connections between different companies, more than 48 million person-hours worked in Nigeria, fabrication of more than 60,000 tons of equipment in Nigeria and the advancement of drilling technologies leading to greater oil production in ultra-deep waters of 1,400 to 1,700 meters.

The reservoir and drilling advancements implemented during the Egina Project are expected to benefit future offshore development in the area of reservoir drilling in Nigeria as well as other parts of Africa. Two-hundred Nigerian students were trained and allowed an opportunity to further their education and experience, which will create room for excellent career opportunities. In addition to contributing greatly to the oil production field, the Egina project elevated the Nigerian economy. The companies made a conscious effort to purchase local goods, employ Nigerian citizens and develop local infrastructure.

Distinguished Achievement Award Event Details
All three recipients will be recognized at the Distinguished Achievement Awards Event held Monday, 4 May at NRG Center in Houston, Texas, USA. The event offers OTC 2020 attendees an opportunity to support their colleagues and celebrate these industry accomplishments, but also raise funds for the 2020 beneficiary, United Against Human Trafficking, as well as, network with experts from around the world. The event will include a networking lunch, awards presentation, and beneficiary recognition.

Tickets for the OTC Distinguished Achievement Awards Event are available for purchase for USD 85 each. Reserve your seat during registration, which can be found at 2020.otcnet.org/register. More information about the awards and sponsorship opportunities can be found at 2020.otcnet.org/why-attend/daa-event.

With more than 50 years of successfully conducting business, OTC has become a place where energy professionals meet to exchange ideas and opinions to advance scientific and technical knowledge for offshore resources and environmental matters. The 2020 event offers quality, value, and networking opportunities that are unmatched by others, including more than 560,000 square feet of exhibit space showcasing the latest industry innovations, and 350 peer-selected technical sessions, 59,000 energy professionals from more than 100 countries are expected to attend. 

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ABOUT OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is the world’s foremost event where energy professionals meet to exchange ideas and opinions to advance scientific and technical knowledge for offshore resources and environmental matters. Founded in 1969, OTC’s flagship conference is held annually in Houston.  OTC has expanded technically and globally with the Arctic Technology Conference, OTC Brasil, and OTC Asia. For more information, visit www.otcnet.org

 

MEDIA CONTACT
Offshore Technology Conference
Gina Quevedo
Marketing and Brand Manager
+1.713.457.6866
pr@otcnet.org

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