December 1997 Vol. 218 No. 12  Offshore

Robert E. Snyder,  Editor

Marine drilling rigs, subsea completions, U.S. Gulf FSO

It's an interesting project, once a year, to ferret out timely data for the annual Marine Drilling Rigs listings, as presented in this issue. Over the last year, there were several changes—even without the mega mergers of the previous year. These were mostly scramblings to buy, build or convert semis and drillships for the surging deepwater market. Our cutoff date precluded the inclusion of a few recently announced changes. Courtesy of the Offshore International Newsletter, some of these are as follows.

Workships Contractors of the Netherlands is negotiating orders for up to four Amethyst-Class semis. Along with Brazil's Maritima and Navegacao de Engenharia Ltd., and Foramer subsidiary Pride, Workships has placed orders for three units, two to be built at Quebec's Davie Shipbuilding and one at France's Direction des Constructions Navales. The three rigs, tentatively named Amethyst 2, 3 and 4, are reportedly committed to Petrobras for six years starting 1999. Petrobras has also taken over the ex Spirit of Columbus semi, which never got out of the yard, as a floating production unit for Roncador field; it will be renamed Petrobras XXXVI.

Smedvig has indicated it will sell its West Omikron jackup, presently serving as a water injection platform in Ekofisk to ENSCO International. Falcon has purchased the bulk ore carrier Kassos, which will be converted to a drillship and be renamed Peregrine VIII; our listings keep up with Falcon through the No. VII conversion. OIN notes that Norway's Navis AS has contracted with Samsung to construct a new Hitec Sea Prince design deepwater drillship, to be delivered in early 2000. Navis is reportedly building the vessel to sell, later, to a contractor. And it was noted that Petrolia Drilling took over operation of the Russian drillship Valentin Shashin.

Brazil/Subsea wells. Offshore Data Services notes in its October 27 subsea installation wrapup that Petrobras' Phase I development of Roncador field in 5,900-ft water and other ongoing developments in Campos basin will require a large number of subsea completions. So far, 26 subsea trees are reportedly required to tie-back the new production semi Petrobras XXXVI on Roncador. The Bijupera/Salema field will have 18 subsea trees tied back to the FPV Petrobras XLV. And two other new fields, Barracuda and Caratinga, are now producing through the Petrobras XXXIV using nine subsea development wells.

The above cited report on subsea installations notes that Brazil and the Norwegian North Sea have a "large chunk" of new subsea trees, but other regions, notably the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Australia and Canada, are seeing increased subsea activity. This year, 247 subsea installations are planned, installed or under construction worldwide, with 75 of these in waters deeper than 1,500 ft. That number will increase to 460 next year, with 182 in waters 650 to 1,500 ft deep, and 86 in 1,500-ft + water.

Saga gears up for deep water. Norway's Saga Petroleum has been making plans for several years to embark on its first deepwater project. That will be an exploration well on its Production License 215 covering the Gjaller Ridge, in about 1,400-m (4,600-ft) water in the Norwegian Sea. Two or three wells are expected, "depending on what it finds in the first one."

The operator has prepared for this event through several planned actions, including seconding personnel to Exxon for its deepwater wells in the U.S. GOM, and participating in a deepwater project organized by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate in 1993–'94. The company has acquired operatorships in some of the greatest water depths off Norway, the UK and Ireland. And it has collaborated closely with Statoil, Norsk Hydro, BP and Shell. Saipem's Scarabeo 5 semi will apparently be used; and thorough preparations are required to meet "particularly stringent standards by authorities on such deepwater projects, including a risk analysis for the whole operation."

First FSO for Gulf of Mexico. FMC's subsidiary SOFEC, Inc. has announced a contract by MODEC (U.S.A.), Inc. for design, procurement, fabrication, installation and commissioning of a permanent external turret mooring system for the first ever tanker-based Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) facility in the Gulf of Mexico. MODEC and consortia partner Mitsui & Co. announced the project earlier, which will be an installation for Pemex in its Chantarell complex, in 250-ft water. The operator has not released further details on the installation.

The external turret will be designed to allow continuous 360° weathervaning and remain onsite during a 100-yr hurricane. The swivel will have a spare flowpath to allow overhaul onsite without shutting in production. The mooring system and FSO are designed to offload two tankers simultaneously, one moored side-by-side with the FSO and one moored in tandem with the FSO. FMC's Smith Meter will provide receiving and two offloading metering systems; FMC Loading Systems will supply marine loading arms for side-by-side offloading.

Mooring performance of an FSO in possible Gulf of Mexico hurricane conditions is a concern for operators and the U.S. MMS. Some good news in this respect came from Amoco's Liuhua project in 1996, in which the moored vessels survived a typhoon-class storm in good shape.

Correction. In World Oil's October 1997 feature, "Mobile Offshore Production Units," the owner's name of the FPSO Armada Perkasa was incorrectly listed. The correct owner designation is Bumi Care Offshore Production SDN BHD. This is a joint venture between Bumi Armada Navigation and Swiss firm Care Offshore Production Systems Inc. Care notes that, since July 1997, more than 1 million bbl of Malaysian Bunga Kekwa crude has been exported through the vessel with no downtime.

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Copyright © 1999 Gulf Publishing Company