Technip has scored yet again in the US Gulf of Mexico, this time by winning the front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for phase two of BP’s Mad Dog development.
Detailed engineering is scheduled to start later this year.
It inevitably means that the French group will secure the build contract for a second spar-style Mad Dog production platform, which would be fabricated in Finland. In a nutshell, Technip controls the market for production spars as it owns the intellectual property.
This is the first award under a 10-year spar platform master services agreement forged between BP and Technip last year.
Technip has scored yet again in the US Gulf of Mexico, this time by winning the front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for phase two of BP’s Mad Dog development.
Detailed engineering is scheduled to start later this year.
It inevitably means that the French group will secure the build contract for a second spar-style Mad Dog production platform, which would be fabricated in Finland. In a nutshell, Technip controls the market for production spars as it owns the intellectual property.
This is the first award under a 10-year spar platform master services agreement forged between BP and Technip last year.
When built, the phase two spar will be co-located with the first platform, which was installed on Green Canyon block 782 in 2004. Judging from a release issued by BP last year, the new unit will be capable of handing some 120-140,000 barrels oil equivalent per day.
Technip’s operating centre in Houston will execute the contract with support from the company’s team located at Pori in Finland.
Discovered in 1998, the Mad Dog field was initially equipped with a truss spar platform capable of simultaneous production and drilling.
Its plated production capability was 80,000 barrels of oil and 60million cu.ft of gas per day. Export was and remains via existing shelf infrastructure … the Caesar oil and Cleopatra gas pipeline systems.
Mad Dog phase one marked the first time a polyester mooring system was employed for a spar.
This asset has been hugely successful for BP which, last autumn, announced the successful appraisal of the previously untested northern segment of Mad Dog.
The well results confirmed a significant resource extension for the complex, which includes the existing field, in production since 2005, and appraisal drilling of the Mad Dog South field in 2008 and 2009.
The drill-bit encountered some 50m (166ft net) of hydrocarbons in the objective Miocene hydrocarbon-bearing sands and an oil column of more than 91m (300ft).
Pending confirmation through future appraisal drilling, the total hydrocarbons initially in place in the Mad Dog field complex are now estimated to be up to 4billion barrels oil equivalent.
BP maintains a 60.5% working interest in Mad Dog. BHP Billiton 23.9% and Chevron holds the remaining 15.6%.