Petrobras has contracted saipem for
construction of subsea facilities for the Lula Norte, Lula Sul, and Lula Extremo Sul project offshore Brazil.
The location is in the Santos basin presalt region, around 300 km (186 mi) from the coasts of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states.
Saipem will engineer, procure, fabricate, and install three offshore pipelines, associated pipeline end terminations, and free standing hybrid risers for the gas export systems to be installed in the Lula field in water depths of up to 2,200 m (7,218 ft).
The Saipem FDS2 will perform most of the offshore within the first half of 2016.
Saipem’s yard under development in Guarujá will fabricate the risers and subsea equipment. The Saipem FDS2 vessel will handle most of the offshore installations during the first half of 2016.
Pancontinental Oil and Gas NL has
verified that the recently completed Sunbird-1 well off the southern Kenyan coast has intersected an oil column – the first oil ever discovered off the East African coast.
The gross oil column is assessed to be 14 m (46 ft) thick beneath a gross gas column of 29.6 m (97 ft) in a reefal limestone reservoir in the Sunbird Miocene Pinnacle Reef in area L10A. The Sunbird Reef is an ancient Miocene pinnacle reef buried beneath 900 m (2,953 ft) of younger sediment.
The corresponding net values are 9.2 m (30 ft) for the oil zone and 28.3 m (93 ft) for the gas zone. The net values are calculated for the reservoir using cut-offs of 10% porosity (Phi) and 50% shale volume (Vsh).
Statoil Steps Up Barents Sea Drilling
Statoil has approval from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate for a wildcat well in the Barents Sea.
The semisubmersible Transocean Spitsbergen will drill well 7325/1-1, the second in production license 615, which was awarded in 2011 under Norway’s 21st licensing round. It spans blocks 7324/1, 2, 3, and 7325/1.
Co-licensees are ConocoPhillips Scandinavia, OMV (Norge), and Petoro.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority has issued consents for three Statoil initiatives offshore Norway.
One is for use of the Navion Europa as a temporary storage vessel for the Heidrun field and the Heidrun Oil Export Solution in the Norwegian Sea.
Heidrun is in 350 m (1,148 ft) of water in the Haltenbanken region. Production started in 1995 using a concrete TLP. Statoil has commissioned new facilities to extend the field’s life.
Navion Europa, operated by Teekay Shipping, regulates buoy loading operations on the Norwegian continental shelf.
In the North Sea, Statoil has authorization to use the semisubmersible Songa Trym to drill well 35/11-A-31 in the Fram H-Nord field in license 090, in 361 m (1,184 ft) of water
Aramco Confirms Deepwater Red Sea Oil Find
Saudi Aramco has discovered three oil and two gas fields over the last year, according to the company’s annual report.
These included the deepwater oil field Al-Haryd in the Red Sea, which followed a significant gas discovery in the Shaur structure in this region the previous year.
Also in 2013, the company executed its first deepwater drillstem test at Duba-1, in the northern Red Sea, in a water depth of 2,127 ft (648 m). Results indicated tight reservoirs for potential future development.
As for offshore development programs, the shallow-water Manifa field off eastern Saudi Arabia entered production in April 2013, three months ahead of schedule, with output reaching 500,000 b/d of oil by July.
SapuraKencana Wins Rig Supply Contracts
SapuraKencana Petroleum has won two contracts to supply multiple platforms for projects offshore Southeast Asia. Total value is around $415 million.
Carigali-PTTEPI Operating Co. has commissioned four wellhead platforms and associated subsea pipelines for the block N-17 and B-17-01 field Phase 3 project in the Thailand-Malaysia Joint Development Area (JDA).
Work starts this month and is expected to be completed in September 2017.
Hess Exploration has contracted three wellhead platforms for a project in the North Malay basin, due to be delivered and installed by 3Q 2016.