Subsea 7 and Schlumberger will work together to provide subsurface equipment to Turkey’s TPAO for the Sakarya field development.
TPAO discovered Sakarya in August 2020, in the deepwaters of the western Black Sea. Turkey is eager to bolster domestic gas production in order to reduce its import needs.
Subsea 7 did not provide a value for the contract, although did describe it as major. The company considers contracts where its share of revenue is more than $750 million to be major.
Subsea 7 and Schlumberger won the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) work via their Subsea Integration Alliance.
The contract covers subsurface equipment to onshore production. This includes completions, subsea production systems (SPS), subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) and an early production facility (EPF).
Schlumberger will also carry out work on the well completions scope and the design, construction and commissioning of the EPF. The facility will have 350 mmcf per day of capacity.
Turkey expects first gas from Sakarya to reach the Filyos processing terminal in 2023. TPAO has said the Sakarya field holds 540 billion cubic metres of gas.
The field is around 180 km offshore.
Integrated plans
Subsea 7 said it would carry out EPCI work on subsea pipelines and associated equipment, which would connect the subsea wells to the EPF. The wells are in around 2,000 metres of water. It has already begun project management and engineering work, based in its local office in Istanbul.
The company went on to say the work covered the provision and installation of “infield flowlines, control umbilicals, tie-in connections, associated subsea equipment, 170 km of gas export pipeline and monoethylene glycol injection pipeline to the EPF”.
Subsea Integration Alliance CEO Olivier Blaringhem said the consortium offered the customer “a truly integrated solution for field development. A strong, collaborative early engagement process led by [TPAO] has enabled an industry-leading timeline from discovery to first gas for a project of this scale and complexity.”
Subsea 7 intends to build a “long-term relationship” with the Turkish company, said CEO John Evans. The service company plans to make a “significant contribution to the development and growth of the Turkish energy industry”.
Ambitious growth
TPAO, in July, reported that the Türkali-2 appraisal well on the Sakarya field had flowed at 0.75 million cubic metres per day of gas. It may be able to reach 1.2 mcm per day, the company said. It drilled the well in 2,154 metres of water.
IHS Markit noted that Sakarya was the largest discovery in 2020 and that the Sakarya North was the largest in the first half of 2021. The consultancy said that the project would develop in three phases, with the first phase to include six to 10 production wells.
IHS Markit has forecast that development costs are around $3.2 billion. It said TPAO’s aim to achieve first gas by 2023 was ambitious and that the date could be pushed back to 2025.
Updated at 4:19 pm with more details from Schlumberger and IHS Markit.