Selection of deepwater floating oil platform based on grey correlation

To select a suitable floating oil platform for a given deepwater oilfield, a method based on grey-correlation theory was proposed and verified. By analyzing factors that may affect selection of deepwater platform, thirteen main factors were chosen. This article also summed up the statistics on 65 deepwater floating platforms (including tension leg platform, deep-draft column type platform, semi-submersible platform, and floating storage mining and unloading device) performing well in the world. With a deepwater oilfield to be developed as a sample, the application of the method was illustrated: Considering the factor series of the given oilfield to be developed as referent series, the relevance between referent series and factor series of each platform in statistics was calculated with grey-correlation analysis, and the optimal platform was identified as the one that had the highest relevance. Two examples proved the feasibility and reliability of the method.