Subsea Shuttle overview
Subsea Shuttle, LLC 2021Q04 stakeholder update
Subsea tie-backs will dominate deepwater and facilitate cost effective exploitation of smaller reservoir pockets. This will help keep existing hubs full and reduce costs on a per BBL basis. Subsea chemical storage and injection accomplish the following:
- Enable longer tie-backs
- Lower development costs
- Reduce host platform space and weight requirements
- Eliminate hazardous chemical interaction with offshore personnel
- Lower chemical costs
- Modular design benefits
- Facilitates platform de-manning
- Easing host tie-in burdens
Subsea Shuttle, LLC’s technology and equipment feature the following:
- Cost effective modular design - design one, build many
- Common Off the Shelf (COTS) components where possible
- Patented dual barrier chemical storage
- All electric operation with significant health/status monitoring features
Subsea Shuttle Advantage
Benefits of Subsea Chemical Storage and Injection:
Supplement existing clogged and/or ‘under-tubed’ umbilicals to maintain subsea well production
Enable production of resources past (further offset) the current limits of 'chemical tubed' umbilicals, developing tieback opportunities currently only developable with new host facilities
Lower development costs of tieback opportunities within current technology reach by removing tubes from umbilicals (reducing umbilical costs by up to 80%)
Reduce host platform space and weight requirements (equipment, chemical and riser load); and hence cost on newbuilds. Free up space on existing brownfield host platform to allow for de-bottlenecking, tie-in of additional wells, and/or other new equipment requirements
Eliminate hazardous chemical interaction with personnel
Engineered for modular industrial fabrication and facilitates 'local content' requirements with bolt-on proprietary components. (Design one, then build many.) This approach minimizes spare parts, simplifies inspection, maintenance, and repairs, and lowers costs
Better match chemical injection with changing reservoir conditions
Significant step towards 'normally un-attended' operations (or platform 'de-manning')
Facilitate "Chemical Injection as a Service", mimicking successful onshore chemical delivery model
Several dozen patents issued and pending.
Let's make something great together
Get in TouchAbout Subsea Shuttle
After decades of working in the deepwater energy sector, Art Schroeder and his partner, Jim Chitwood came up with a way to deliver injection chemicals and equipment to deepwater oil and gas wells at substantial savings compared to current methods.
They called their device the "Subsea Shuttle" and, after three years of planning, began by testing and refining prototypes in Schroeder's home swimming pool in December. The next month, they moved their technology proving grounds — or waters — to a 30-foot-deep tank on the northern edge of Katy.
The shuttle is a deepwater storage facility, a square-shaped structure with four columns that control buoyancy to raise and lower it without offshore cranes that can cost $1 million a day to rent.
Services offered
- Engineering services in the field of design and development of equipment for use in subsea oil and gas extraction.
- Research, testing and development of equipment for use in subsea oil and gas production.
- Design of equipment for use in subsea oil and gas production.
- Technical consulting related to design and development of equipment for use in subsea oil and gas extraction.
Meet the team
Tom A. Gay
A senior advisor with Subsea Shuttle, LLC. He has 40 years of industry experience, including 31 years with ExxonMobil in upstream roles in research, project engineering, commercial and facility integrity. Gay served as BG Group's technical authority for floating production systems and represented BG in several DeepStar projects. His experience includes assignments in the United States, Norway, the United Kingdom and France. Gay holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Oklahoma State University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Art J. Schroeder Jr.
Co-founded Subsea Shuttle, LLC in 2019 and serves a Board member and CEO. He also co-founded Safe Marine Transfer LLC in 2013 where he serves as a Board member and CEO. Previously he founded Energy Valley in 2000, a company that provides money, marketing, and management to commercialize and advance energy-related technologies. Prior to that 25 years working for a major integrated oil company serving in operations, engineering, construction, strategy development, and crisis management roles, domestic and internationally.
Schroeder has served on numerous professional, corporate, and civic boards and has published over 100 technical papers and has been granted dozens of patents on his innovations. He is the recipient of numerous awards including Offshore Technology Conference's Special Citation, Engineering, Science and Technology Council of Houston’s Lifetime Achievement Award, US Department of Energy recognition for leadership building Offshore Technology Roadmap, and SPE's Management and Information Award. Art was graduated from Georgia Tech with both a B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering, and from the University of Houston with an MBA, major in Finance and International Business. He has also completed several post graduate certificate programs and lives with his family in Houston, Texas.
James E. Chitwood
Co-founded Subsea Shuttle in 2019. He has 48 years of industry experience in offshore engineering and research and development, working both domestically and internationally. His principal project from 1991 to 2014 was the Chevron-led DeepStar Project, where he managed joint industry R&D undertakings. Chitwood has worked for various engineering, manufacturing and production companies both as an employee and as a consultant throughout his career. He holds 14 patents and has an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University.
