Earlier this year, Chevron submitted the “Rosebank project environmental statement” to the UK government for approval.
Development is currently based around a 292m FPSO to be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea. The notional price tag is $1.9billion and the conditional order was placed in April.
Until Chevron’s bombshell, the 99,750-tonne turret-moored FPSO was scheduled to be handed over by the end of November 2016.
It was to have a spec-plate capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil and 190million cu.ft of gas per day plus a storage capacity of just over 1million barrels.
Export of oil would be via shuttle tankers while gas would be piped ashore via a new 236km (147-mile) subsea pipeline running south-east from Rosebank to the south of the Shetland Islands where it would be connected in to the SIRGE (Shetland Islands Regional Gas Export) system which links to St Fergus in the Scottish north-east.
Other contracts awarded include to OneSubsea, a joint venture between Schlumberger and Cameron. The company was awarded a $500million contract to provide the subsea equipment based on a 240million barrels oil equivalent project.
The OneSubsea package includes the engineering, supply, and manufacturing of subsea manifolds, subsea trees and subsea control systems. These are to be manufactured in various locations in the UK, including OneSubsea’s facility in Leeds.
The $1billion development drilling contract was issued to Norwegian company Dolphin Drilling which is building the new rig Bolista Dolphin on the back of the five-year deal.
The rig is to drill 14 wells of which seven are designated producers while the others will be used for water injection to sustain reservoir pressure.
Subsea equipment installation is supposed to happen in two stages over the period 2015-16 and the production ship was diaried for installation on Rosebank in 2017.
Quite clearly these arrangements are up in the air pending the outcome of the field development’s review.
But there is no question of the $10billion development being cancelled. One way and another it will happen and while the current plan is based around 340million recoverable barrels of hydrocarbons, Rosebank could yield 700million barrels and perhaps more eventually.
Recommended for you
