The Savonette gas field is situated around 80km offshore Trinidad, at a water depth of approximately 290ft. Owned and operated by British Petroleum P Trinidad and Tobago (BPTT), it was discovered in 2004. Natural gas production started in late October 2009.
The project is placed over the Chachalaca exploration discovery. The gas produced at the field will be supplied to Atlantic LNG for export as liquid natural gas to international and domestic markets.
Savonette platform
The unmanned platform has a production capacity of one billion cubic feet of gas a day. The platform was constructed in Trinidad and Tobago, and was developed by Trinidad Offshore Fabricators (TOFCO) in La Brea during 2008-09.
It is the fourth platform, following the Cannonball, Mango, Cashima and Savonette platforms.
The gas is processed at the Mahogany B platform, which is connected to the Savonette platform by an 8.5km-long subsea pipeline. Advancements or modifications to the Mahogany platform including the installation of valves, instrumentation and a riser linking to the platforms are part of the project.
Design and construction
The platform was developed and designed in 18 months. BPTT used a ‘clone’ design model of the Cannonball platform, which has been successfuly used for the Mango and Cashima. The company has applied the idea of a standardised design model to reduce costs and enhance efficiency from platform to platform.
Around 30% of the project’s engineering, procurement and construction where provide by local engineers. Regional contractors handled around half of the project management.
The deck was installed in February 2009. A 1,898t jacket was installed in September 2008. The deck and jacket were welded together, completing the platform installation phase. The topside of was installed in February 2009.
Technology
The platform used dual azimuth seismic processing technology for the field development. DAZ processing technology uses improvised images from under the shallow gas pockets for optimised field appraisals and development. The technology used for project field development is scheduled to come online by end of 2009.
Production
BPTT holds exploration licenses for around 904,000 acres offshore Trinidad and Tobago’s east coast. With the completion of the Savonette platform, the company has production access from 12 offshore platforms. The platform will maintain production levels of over 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.
The average production is expected to be 600 million standard cubic feet per day of gas in addition to associated condensate, from four wells.
