Doris to work on Maersk Chissonga FEED
Maersk Oil (Maersk) , a fully owned subsidiary of A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S operates theBlock 16, which includes the Chissonga discovery.
Chissonga is located in the Lower Congo Basin some 138 kilometres offshore Angolain water depths 1,500 meters.
In 2011, Maersk Oil acquired the 15% interest in Block 16 in Angola from Devon Energy for an initial payment of $70 million.
As a results the actual interests in Chissonga are shared as following:
- Maersk Oil 65%
- Sonangol 20%
- Odebrecht 15%
The acquisition of Devon Energy’s interest in the Block 16 came just on time with the evaluation work on theChissonga discovery to gather pace
After completing the appraisal of Chissonga-3 well and more to come, Maersk is now confident that the oil and gas reserves in Block 16 are large enough to justify to review upward the size of the original Chissonga FPSO design.
Based on LVCC size hull and 20,000 t deck, such as designed and built by South Korean contractors, the new Chissonga FPSO should be similar to Total Girassol FPSO operating in the neighboring block 17.
The Chissonga FPSO would have:
- 150,000 b/d oil production capacity
- 200,000 b/d water injection capacity
- 235 million cf/d gas injection capacity
- 40 subsea tie-back wells
- oil offloading system in spread-moored configuration with catenary anchor leg mooring
In the production sharing contract signed between Sonangol and Maersk, the associated gas will remainSonangol‘s property.
The Chissonga gas should be re-injected in a first phase then used as feedstock for Angola LNG plant inCabinda, Angola.
Maersk project team is based in Houston, Texas, USA and is working on the pre-FEED with the support of French Doris Engineering’s Houston office.
US Doris Inc. should also perform the Project Management Consultancy in 2013.
At least three companies are expected to submit commercial bid:
- BW Offshore
- Modec
- SBM Offshore
Maersk Oil in brief
In June 2005, Maersk Oil acquired 50% interest and operatorship in the Production Sharing Agreement forBlock 16, about 100 kilometers offshore Angola.
In November 2006, Maersk Oil acquired a 50% interest and operatorship in the Production Sharing Agreements for offshore Blocks 8 and 23.
Partners are Svenska Petroleum (30%) and Sonangol (20%).
Water depth in Block 8 is up to 500 meters and in Block 23, up to 1,500 meters.
Maersk Oil is an international oil and gas company with operated production from fields in the Danish and UK North Sea, offshore Qatar, in Algeria and in Kazakhstan.
Maersk oil production declined by 24% from 335,000 b/d BOE to 254,000 b/d BOE on first quarter 2012 due to the fast depletion of aging fields.
Therefore Mearsk is keen to restore capacity with Chissonga oil field.
Doris in brief
Doris Inc. in Houston has been active in project management services for many years, having engineered and led all facilities engineering activities for Murphy’s Azurite field development in deepwater offshore Congo, which employed the world’s first FPSO.
The company is presently building a similar relationship with Maersk, supporting the Chissonga field development off Angola.
A Doris team is working in Maersk’s Houston office, providing PMT support, while another Doris team is working in parallel from the company’s own Houston base performing engineering activities.
DORIS Engineering have been, and remain, pioneer in the field of oil and gas offshore development since the creation of the company in 1965.
Today Doris has more than 900 people worldwide, including Paris head office and UK, USA, Brazil,Indonesia and Angola subsidiaries
Doris long term achievements were recognized by the industry when DORIS Engineering won the 2006 OTC Award.
With Doris‘s support for the PMC, Maersk’s Chissonga FPSO is expected to be completed and run into operation offshore Angola in 2016.
