Flow Assurance is keeping the flow path open.  This session will examine the flow assurance basics of thermal/hydraulics and solids management as well as highlight an example of use in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

Howard S. Littell

 

Howard received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Mississippi State University in 1987, then a M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University before joining Shell in Houston in 1991.  After several years in E&P research, he transferred into a facility engineering role supporting onshore fields in New Mexico and Montana, and then into an offshore system development role in Shell’s Gulf of Mexico gas pipeline infrastructure.  In this assignment he was exposed to technical as well as business and regulatory challenges in working with E&P customers from within and outside Shell, and with other pipelines as competitors and partners.  At the end of 2003, he moved to the Subsea Systems Engineering group in EPP, where his time has been split between flow assurance and traditional systems engineering.  He inherited flow assurance responsibilities and started up the Glider project, Shell’s first unheated single-flowline subsea oil development, worked on a subsea mudline boosting technology development project, then took over the flow assurance lead for the Perdido project in early 2005, and led the subsea process engineering and design for control and operability of the subsea separation and artificial lift used in that ground-breaking project.

 

 

Andrew J. Onstad

 

Andrew joined the Flow Assurance group in the Upstream Major Projects organization in June of 2009.  In his first year in Shell, he has had the opportunity to work on flow assurance for subsea projects in the Gulf of Mexico including brown field operating and start-up strategies as well as the process commissioning of Perdido.  Prior to joining Shell, he received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University as well as an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.