A former North Sea floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel owned by Altera Infrastructure is set to be redeployed to Africa as part of a 15-year agreement.
Altera Infrastructure announced a contract with Italian energy company Eni for redeployment of the FPSO Voyageur Spirit and the shuttle tanker Nordic Brasilia for the Baleine Phase 2 project, located offshore Côte d’Ivoire.
The Voyageur Spirit departed the UK in April this year after spending three years in dry dock at Kishorn Port.
The cylindrical FPSO previously operated on the Huntington field in the North Sea until 2020.
Voyageur Spirit set for “fast-track” deployment
In a statement announcing the Baleine contract, Altera said development of the project will be on a fast-track schedule with a planned start-up date in the fourth quarter of 2024.
President for Altera Infrastructure production Chris Brett said securing a contract in a “promising region” like Côte d’Ivoire was an acknowledgement of the company’s fast-track capabilities.
© Supplied by Kishorn Port“This is now our second contract award in short succession based on the redeployment of an existing FPSO and demonstrates that redeployments are some of the fastest, most cost-effective and emissions friendly ways for our customers to develop their projects in the current market,” he said.
“With this award, we continue to build our project presence in Dubai and already have a presence in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire where we intend to be committed and engaged contributors to the development of a growing industry for many years to come.”
Africa’s first net zero emissions project
Altera said the Voyageur Spirit and Nordic Brasilia are currently undergoing life extension work and field specific modifications at Drydocks World in Dubai.
Additionally, Altera will convert the Nordic Brasilia into an FSO to provide additional storage capacity to the Voyageur and Altera will own and operate both vessels.
The development of Baleine is Africa’s first net zero emissions project covering Scope 1 and 2 and Altera said the company is “excited to join Eni in moving the industry forward by focusing on more sustainable developments”.
Located approximately 50 kilometres off the coast of the city of Abidjan at a water depth of 1,200 metres, the Baleine field contains an estimated 3.3 trillion cubic feet of associated gas.