The development of deepwater oil fields has reached a new stage with the dramatic increase in water depth and the recent increasing demands of the economic development in the filed. The use of a Tension Leg Platform (TLP) combined with other systems, such as Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) system, Floating Production Unit (FPU) system, Tender Assisted Drilling (TAD) system, etc., has drawn the industry attention and increased significantly in the past few years. For the areas lacking of pipeline system, the use of TLP(s) combined with FPSO has been chosen to efficiently develop the deepwater fields. The TLP with a Tender Assisted Drilling system significantly reduces the payload of the platform and reduces the investment in the TLP system substantially. This opens the door for many new deepwater field developments to use the tension leg platform. The advantage of the TLP combined with a TAD system is more significant when several TLPs are used for the continuous development of the field. One of the applications for the TLP with a tender assisted drilling system can be in the development of an offshore marginal field. Owing to the increase of water depth, the conventional fixed platform model for the exploration of those fields becomes uneconomical. It also would be too expensive to use a large TLP structure for those marginal fields due to the large amount of initial investment. The TLP system with tender assisted drilling can be used to develop those fields economically. There are many marginal fields in China offshore, especially in shelf areas. The application of this field developing model, combined with the existing field developing experience in China, will open the door for many marginal field developments.This paper will review the application of the combined TLP system through some examples of completed/ongoing projects, and major technical issues encountered in those practices. The potential application of this technology in China deepwater development will be discussed in the end.
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