BURULLUS Gas has begun production from the phase 8a deepwater development project in the West Delta Deep Marine Concession offshore Egypt.
The joint venture between BG Group, Petronas and Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) achieved first commercial gas output from the $1billion subsea development mid-October.
It is regarded as the latest major milestone in the phased development of the West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) Concession, which is located some 90km offshore the Nile Delta. Phase 8a was sanctioned in April 2010.
This phase is an extension of the existing deepwater subsea infrastructure and comprises nine subsea wells at a total cost of some US$1billion.
Petrojet, an affiliate of the EGPC, fabricated all of the subsea structures at its Maadia yard, making this the largest subsea construction project completed by the Egyptian facility.
Drilling and completion operations were undertaken by two semi-submersible deepwater rigs, Saipem’s Scarabeo 6, and Diamond Offshore’s Ocean Endeavour.
Technip was in charge of the main subsea EPIC contract that included detailed engineering design, procurement, fabrication and installation.
The majority of the subsea controls systems were supplied by Vetco Gray, with Aker Solutions providing controls systems for one well.
Cameron supplied the nine subsea trees and subsea deepwater connector system components.
The WDDM concession is prolific. Since 1994, BG Group and partners have discovered 14 gas fields: Scarab, Saffron, Simian, Sienna, Sapphire, Serpent, Saurus, Sequoia, SimSat-P1 and SimSat-P2. Additional development leases were granted in 2007 for the Solar, Sienna-Up, Mina-1 and Silva discoveries.
The fields have undergone a number of development phases to maximise hydrocarbon recovery. Phase 4 brought onstream seven additional wells during 2008 and with the addition of three Sequoia wells in 2009, this increased the total number of sub-sea wells in WDDM to 34.
In 2009, BG Group started incremental gas production through WDDM Phase 5, a compression project in this concession.
The project included installation of two onshore gas turbine-driven compression sets, new absorption towers and associated equipment to extend plateau production from WDDM reservoirs. The project was designed to boost the pressure of processed gas into the grid, allowing field operations at lower pressures.
BG Group says it continues to evaluate future phases of WDDM development activity. The Group started execution of the Phase 7 additional third pipeline and compression project in 2010. Phase 7 comprises a new 68km, 36-inch offshore pipeline with associated onshore gas-receiving facilities, a slug-catcher, adjacent to the two existing WDDM pipelines, and five new compressors. Incremental gas came onstream in January 2011 with the compression plant due onstream by the end of the year.
Phase 8a was sanctioned in 2010 and has been brought onstream within schedule.
Early engineering and design for Phase 8b, an additional seven wells, has been completed and this phase has been sanctioned.
A three-well workover programme was sanctioned in 2010 to re-work three Scarab wells with further drilling and workover programmes under evaluation for later delivery.