Generated by the worldenergydata field-development playbook (epic #567). Recommendation is heuristic (Concept Select / FEL-1 fidelity), not a sanctioned design.
Stones sits in ~2896 m (9,500 ft) of water, then the world's deepest producing development, where a fixed or moored-to-bottom host (spar/TLP) is impractical and seabed/export infrastructure is sparse, so Shell selected a disconnectable turret-moored FPSO (Turritella) able to ride out Gulf hurricanes by sailing off station. The deep, high-pressure Lower Tertiary Wilcox reservoir (~8,000 m below sea level) and absence of nearby export pipelines favored FPSO storage with shuttle-tanker offloading over a long gas/oil pipeline. Steel lazy-wave risers and a buoy-disconnect system manage the extreme depth and metocean loads; all wells are subsea wet trees. Notable: World's deepest oil-and-gas production at startup (~2,896 m) and the deepest FPSO ever moored.
| Concept | Score | Trees | Rationale / flags |
|---|---|---|---|
| subsea_to_shore | 0.741 | wet | large reserves (250 MMboe) justify a dedicated host |
| fpso ★ | 0.695 | wet | large reserves (250 MMboe) justify a dedicated host hurricane regime: FPSO needs a disconnectable turret |
| flng | 0.629 | wet | large reserves (250 MMboe) justify a dedicated host |
★ = the concept actually selected for this field (where known).
Sources: SubseaIQ field catalog (~2014) + BSEE + curated vessel/ subsea catalogs. Schematics are deterministic, generated from the field concept.