Amerada Hess Corp., New York, said Bergesen DY Offshore AS, Oslo, has completed the upgrade of former very large crude carrier Berge Hus into a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel called Sendje Ceiba. The FPSO will replace the Sendje Berge working on Ceiba field off Equatorial Guinea. Sendje Ceiba, with onboard processing capacity of 160,000 b/d of liquids and water-injection capacity of 135,000 b/d, will begin taking Ceiba production in early 2002.
Statoil ASA has exercised the first of three 1-year contract options with Prosafe Drilling Services AS for platform drilling in Gullfaks field in the Norwegian North Sea. The option period begins Apr. 1.
Consortium Service Management Group will form a joint venture with Humble Petroleum Inc., Dallas, to develop Humble's 10,000 acres of coalbed methane gas leases in the Hartshorne seam in western Arkansas.
CNOOC Ltd., an affiliate of China National Offshore Oil Corp., has begun production from the last of the three production platforms of Suizhong 36-1 (Phase II-2) in the southern part of Liaodong Bay of Bohai. The other two platforms were brought on stream in August and September of 2001 (OGJ Online, Sept. 7, 2001).
Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd. has awarded FMC Technologies Inc. a 7-year frame contract for the provision of subsea trees, wellheads, and associated equipment in the North Sea. Also, Soekor E&P (Pty.) Ltd. has awarded FMC a contract to provide subsea equipment and technology solutions for the Sable Development project off South Africa. Sable will be developed using six subsea trees, including four producers, a gas injector, and a water injector.
Apache China Petroleum Ltd., the operator of Zhaodong block in the shallow Bohai Sea (up to 4.5 m water depth), has awarded Shengli Oil & Gas Co. a 180-million-yuan contract to build two offshore oil platforms for Zhaodong. Shengli is a unit of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec). One platform is for drilling and the other is for production. Production is expected to peak at 1.35 million tonnes/year in 2002 or 2003.
Cairn Energy PLC has a second discovery on Block RJ-ON-90/1 in Rajasthan, Western India. RJ-H-1 well is 50 km north of the Guda-2 oil discovery drilled in 1999. RJ-H-1 was drilled to 1,837 m MD and found several hydrocarbon-bearing units below 1,400 m. A drillstem test on a 27 m perforated interval flowed 620 b/d of 41°-gravity oil on a half-inch choke.
Zaafarana Oil Co. has extended an operating contract for Prosafe ASA unit Prosafe Production's FPSO Zaafarana, working in Zaafarana field in the Gulf of Suez. The $13.9 million extension is for 4 years, starting Nov. 1.