ConocoPhillips UK has started work installing its new platform for the southern North Sea Katy development.
The 472-tonne Katy jacket and 373-tonne topsides were loaded out from SLP Engineering’s construction yard in Lowestoft mid-June. Installation by the heavy lift vessel Stanislav Yudin was due to be completed by the end of the month.
Drilling rig Maersk Resolve is expected to arrive in-field early this month to start drilling the Katy production well and first gas is expected by the end of the year.
The minimal facilities platform is the 10th platform designed and built for ConocoPhillips by SLP Engineering, which is currently on the hunt for a new owner after parent firm Smulders went into administration.
The field and platform had been called Harrison, but were renamed Katy after ConocoPhillips engineer Katy Osborne, who died aged 26 in 2005 when she was in car crash in Aberdeen. She had led several production optimisation campaigns in the southern North Sea, including the successful MD10 well, subsequently re-named “Katy’s well” by colleagues.
The field will be tied-back via a 10-inch, 14km (8.6 miles) gas production pipeline to a subsea tee at the Kelvin facility, supplied by SLP in 2007. Kelvin is connected to the Caister-Murdoch transportation system and delivers gas to the Theddlethorpe gas terminal.
It has been reported that the field has an anticipated lifetime of 20 years and gas production is predicted to peak in 2013 at a maximum rate of 730.59million cu.m (25.79billion cu.ft) a year.