Submerged turret scheduled for Montara off Australia
Advanced Production and Loading has entered into a $40-million agreement with Tanker Pacific Offshore Terminals Pte. Ltd. to supply a submerged turret production system for the Montara oilfield offshore Australia.
The STP system is scheduled for installation in the first half of 2008 to permanently moor theMontara FPSO, a vessel that Tanker Pacific is to convert into an FPSO. The Montara contract represents the third STP system that APL has contracted for offshore Australia. To further pursue the strong market segment in the Asia Pacific region, APL has decided to establish new commercial headquarters in Singapore.
Montara is operated by Coogee Resources Ltd.
Statoil, Eni strengthen Barents Sea emergency response
Norwegian Cleans Seas Association for the Operating Companies recently released an oil spill response model for the Norwegian continental shelf that calls for boosting inter-municipal oil spill response expertise. The model spurred Statoil and Eni to sign a letter of intent to jointly implement oil spill response in the Barents Sea.
“Together with Eni, we wish to bridge the knowledge gap,” says Tim Dodson, Statoil’s senior vice president for exploration in Exploration & Production Norway. “We will work for technology being tested and implemented as well as acquiring more knowledge of oil spill emergency response in coastal areas.”
Both Statoil and Eni have oil spill response equipment in the far north designed for coastal zone use and will adapt a training course for emergency response developed for local use at Norway’s fire training school.
Måsøy will be the first municipality to have the school. Similar courses will be scheduled for the north.
“In partnership with Eni, we will arrange a supplier seminar for oil spill emergency response in the far north in April,” says Kari Stokke, Statoil adviser for oil spill response. “The aim is to stimulate industry and coordinate good proposals relating to improving response.”
Vincent project to get subsea systems
Woodside Energy Ltd. has contracted FMC Technologies to supply subsea systems for the Vincent project offshore Western Australia. The value of the contract is approximately $81 million.
The initial scope for FMC includes supplying 11 enhanced vertical subsea trees, related control and tie-in systems, and two production manifolds. Manufacturing and delivery of this equipment will be through FMC’s facilities in Kongsberg, Norway, and Singapore.
Oil will be produced subsea, then processed and stored in a disconnectable, double-hull FPSO facility that will be provided through a service agreement.
Vincent is about 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Exmouth, North West Cape, in Western Australia.
The Vincent field will be developed in phases, with first oil planned for 2008 at an initial production level of about 100,000 b/d of oil.
Wood Group lands two maintenance contracts
Talisman Energy Ltd. (Talisman) and Plexus Ocean Systems Ltd. each has awarded Wood Group Pressure Control a contract for maintenance of wellheads and christmas trees in the North Sea.
Talisman’s contract covers all its North Sea operations. The Plexus contract covers wellheads for the Grove platform in the southern North Sea.
“This significant Talisman contract, comprising three one-year options, follows on from our previous work with the company and has enabled us to increase our field service team by 50%,” says Jim Thomson, Wood Group general manager at Peterhead. “In our first contract with Plexus, Wood Group has also been able to market its WG2200T valve and extend its customer base in the southern North Sea.”
Total awards Gotcha GoM scope
Total E&P USA Inc. has awarded a development pre-FEED contract for the deepwater Gotcha field to Intec Engineering.
Work is scheduled for completion in April 2007. The contract is for the subsea scope to include flow assurance, subsea, flowlines, and evaluation of subsea development options working in collaboration with separate engineering contractors studying host and riser options.
Gotcha lies in 2,210-2,469 m (7,250-8,100 ft) water depth in Alaminos Canyon block 856 in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 225 km (140 mi) east of Port Isabel, Texas.
Total operates the field with a 70% interest. Nexen Petroleum USA Inc. holds the remaining 30%.
AUV pipeline inspection sets record
Subsea 7 and SeeByte Ltd. set a record for the longest fully autonomous AUV inspection run during a pipeline inspection for BP EPTG using Subsea 7’s Geosub AUV and SeeByte’s SeeTrack Offshore system.
The operations inspected more than 100 km (62 mi) of pipeline with an AUV. The team inspected sections of the East of Shetland Magnus pipeline, the Clair pipeline, and the West of Shetland pipeline.
Geosub AUV.
“Subsea 7 and SeeByte, under the leadership of BP EPTG, worked closely with the BP TAPS (Terminals and Pipelines) team with the aim of demonstrating the commercial benefits of the technology,” says Jonathan Evans, head of engineering at SeeByte. “The operations included the world’s longest fully autonomous uninterrupted AUV inspection run, a total of 22.2 km (13.8 mi) running at 4 knots (4.6 mph). The acoustic and video images recorded by the system at high speed provide a new dimension to pipeline inspection.”
“The quality of the side-scan data is second to none, and the video data is much better than expected at the low light levels,” says Colin Stevenson, pipelines operations engineer with BP.
“This project has shown that a fully autonomous pipeline inspection using an AUV is now a reality,” says Jim Jamieson, engineering manager at Subsea 7’s remote technology group.
“The Autotracker module pictures the seabed and interprets that picture so it can instruct the AUV to maintain a constant offset from the pipeline. The module can track a single pipeline among multiple pipelines and on varied terrains,” says Ioseba Tena, product manager at SeeByte.
