By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Oct. 25 -- ExxonMobil Corp. unit Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria Ltd. has awarded a turnkey contract to Bouygues Offshore for the construction of a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel for its use in the unit's deepwater Erha oil and gas field off Nigeria. The vessel will operate in 1,200 m of water on Block 209, about 100 miles southeast of Lagos (OGJ, Feb. 28, 2000, p. 55).
The contract covers engineering, procurement, construction, towing, and commissioning of the FPSO, as well as the supply of anchor chains, Bouygues said.
The FPSO will have a hull 285 m long, 63 m wide, and 32 m high and will contain 24,000 tonnes of production modules and living quarters. It will have a storage capacity of 2.2 million bbl of oil and an initial production capacity of 165,000 b/d of oil.
Bouygues Offshore will perform engineering and procurement services in France at its offices in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines near Paris and in Nigeria. Hyundai Heavy Industries will supply the hull and Bouygues Offshore subsidiary NISSCO will fabricate the 2,000 tonne production modules in Southeast Asia and in Nigeria.
Esso's schedule calls for the FPSO to arrive at Erha field in mid-2005 for production to start up by the end of that year. Erha field may contain 1 billion bbl of reserves, ExxonMobil said when the September 1999 appraisal well, Erha-2, was spudded. Drilled to 12,287 ft TD, the well flowed 2,800 b/d of oil on test (OGJ, Jan. 3, 2000, p. 31).
Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. is the concessionaire of the production-sharing contract for this block's lease. Operator Esso holds a 56.25% interest in the block and Shell Nigeria Exploration & Production Co. Ltd. holds 43.75%.
