Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project involves the development of six of the 12 fields discovered at Block 32 around 260km offshore Luanda in Angola. The final investment decision on the project was made in April 2014, which made a further saving of $4bn to the overall investment, earlier estimated at $20bn.
Total operates Block 32 with a 30% stake, along with Sonangol P&P (30%), Sonangol Sinopec International (20%), Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) (15%) and Galp Energia (5%).
The project is located in an 800km² site in the central and southeast part of the block. The water depth at the location ranges from 1,400m to 1,900m.
Major contracts for the $16bn project have been awarded, and production is expected to start in 2017. The production capacity is expected to be 230,000 barrels a day, while the estimated reserves of the six wells are 650million barrels.
Development of the ultra-deep offshore project
The development of the Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project primarily involves the drilling of 59 subsea wells, which will be connected via 300km of subsea lines to two floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels. Associated gas from the fields will be transferred to the Angola Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Soyo.
Two of Total’s very large crude carriers will be converted to create the FPSOs. The two FPSOs will each have an oil treatment capacity of 115,000 barrels a day, a water injection capacity of 200,000 barrels a day, a gas compression capacity of 100 million standard cubic feet a day, and an oil storage capacity of 1.7 million barrels.
The project’s subsea production system will include 20 subsea manifolds and 65 well-sets with vertical subsea trees, ancillary controls, and workover and tie-in systems.
Contractors involved
The $3bn engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning contract for the two FPSOs was awarded to Saipem. The contractual scope includes the engineering, procurement and conversion of the tankers, fabrication and integration of the topsides, and installation of the mooring systems, including the hook-up.
Saipem has also been awarded a $1bn contract to operate and maintain the converted FPSO units for seven years.
A joint venture between Technip and Heerema Marine Contractors has been awarded the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and pre-commissioning contract for the project’s subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines. The contract, awarded in April 2014, is worth $3.5bn, with Technip’s share being 55% and Heerema’s share 45%.
The joint venture will also carry out engineering and installation works for 18 rigid single-top-tension risers, which are large buoyancy tanks measuring 40m by 6m. It will also install flexible top riser jumpers, riser base spools, the rigid pipe-in-pipe production and single pipe injection pipelines, and other subsea structures, piles and steel jumpers. The deeper and heavier pipe-in-pipe production pipelines range from 12in to 18in in diameter.
The Nkr14bn ($2.350bn) contract for the supply of the subsea production system was awarded to Aker Solutions. The company is further collaborating with Prodiaman Oil Services to carry out the local activities associated with the contract.
Offshore vessels involved in the Angolan ultra-deep offshore project
Heerema’s deepwater construction vessel the Balder will be deployed to install the STTRs and the pipe-in-pipe production pipelines, while Technip’s vessel the Deep Blue will install all the remaining pipelines. Technip will also deploy other vessels from its fleet to install the flexibles and umbilicals, and provide construction work support for the ultra-deepwater project.
Bumi Armada’s subsidiaries Armada Offshore OSV and Bumi Armada (Labuan) were contracted in January 2014 to supply their Armada Tuah 306 and Armada Tuah 302 platform supply vessels to carry out the drilling works within Block 32.
