Medusa deepwater spar installed

Sept. 12, 2003
The Medusa truss spar platform, built for Murphy Oil Corp., operator of deepwater Medusa field in the Gulf of Mexico, has been completed and installed, reported contractor J. Ray McDermott SA Wednesday. Medusa field is capable of producing 40,000 b/d of oil and 110 MMcfd of natural gas.

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Sept. 12 -- The Medusa truss spar platform, built for Murphy Oil Corp., operator of deepwater Medusa field in the Gulf of Mexico, has been completed and installed, reported contractor J. Ray McDermott SA Wednesday. Medusa field is capable of producing 40,000 b/d of oil and 110 MMcfd of natural gas.

The spar was delivered on a full-scope engineering, procurement, installation, and construction basis. McDermott's SparTEC subsidiary provided overall project management, including design engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation, and commissioning of the offshore production facility, which was installed in 2,223 ft of water on Mississippi Canyon Block 582 about 100 miles south of New Orleans.

McDermott used its Derrick Barge 50 and Shearleg crane for the installation. The Medusa spar consists of hull, mooring system, topsides, and production facilities. The hull, constructed at McDermott's facility in Jebel Ali, UAE, is 586 ft long, 94 ft in diameter, and weighs 12,800 tonnes.

The topside, which weighs 6,000 tonnes, was prefabricated in subassemblies at the company's TNG facility at Veracruz, Mexico, then assembled and outfitted at its Harbor Island facility near Corpus Christi, Tex. The buoyancy system and mooring piles also were fabricated at Veracruz.

Murphy operates Medusa with 60% working interest; Agip Petroleum Co. Inc., an affiliate of Italian company ENI SPA, holds 25%, and Callon Petroleum Co., Natchez, Miss., 15% (OGJ Online, Mar. 6, 2001)

J. Ray McDermott is a subsidiary of McDermott International Inc.