Oil and gas firm Ithaca Energy said today start up on its North Sea Athena development had been set back due to delays converting the floating production vessel earmarked for the field.
The BW Athena has needed additional work on increasing its power and heading control systems following an incident in the North Sea earlier this year.
More than 70 people had to be evacuated from the Gryphon Alpha floating production vessel in February when four of its 10 anchor chains failed in high winds.
The firm said there had also been other delays on the conversion, being carried out by vessel owner BW Offshore in Dubai.
However, Ithaca, based in Aberdeen, said despite the additional workload, BW Offshore and Dubai Dry Docks had completed fast-track engineering to deliver the vessel close to the original schedule.
It also said it was not due to make any payments for the vessel until it was moored and producing oil on the field, which is in the Outer Moray Firth.
Chief executive Iain McKendrick said: “This short-term delay is clearly disappointing but it does not change the fundamental value of the project. Athena is a highly-valuable development that will more than double net production and further diversify the company’s production portfolio.”
Start up on the £180million development had been expected by the end of the year.
Yesterday, Ithaca said work on the vessel would continue and that it was expected to set sail from Dubai in early 2012 and take about five weeks to get to the field, setting back previously-scheduled production by about two months.
Subsea equipment installation was on schedule and all five wells had now been drilled on the field by the Sedco 704, said Ithaca.
Ithaca is operator on the field and 22.5% equity owner. Partners are Dyas UK (47.5%), EWE Aktiengesellschaft (20%) and Zeus Petroleum (10%).
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