By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 10 -- Total SA, operator of Block 17, has awarded the principal contracts for the giant Pazflor oil development—the third development center on the offshore block, following Girassol and Dalia, both on production (OGJ, July 9, 2007, Newsletter).
Drilling operations are planned to start in 2009; oil production is slated to begin in 2011.
Pazflor, which lies in 600-1,200 m of water about 150 km off the coast and 40 km northeast of Dalia field, involves bringing four fields into production: Perpetua, Hortensia and Zinia (Upper Miocene), and Acacia (Oligocene). The fields were discovered between mid-2000 and early 2003.
Pazflor covers 600 sq km with a north-south axis of more than 30 km. The overall development program uses well-tried techniques on Girassol and Dalia. A floating production, storage, and offloading unit for Pazflor production will process the oil via 49 subsea wells (25 producers, 22 water injectors, and 2 gas injectors). The FPSO will have a processing capacity of 200,000 b/d of oil and a storage capacity of 1.9 million bbl, bringing the installed production capacity on Block 17 to more than 700,000 b/d.
The Pazflor FPSO will handle two oils of very different characteristics: 17-22° gravity oil from Miocene reservoirs and 35-38° gravity oil from the Acacia Oligocene reservoir. Pazflor also will incorporate a number of technological advances in bringing difficult deep offshore fields into production, in particular, seabed gas-liquid separation, adjacent to the production wells. This technology is a world first.
Total E&P Angola, a wholly owned subsidiary of Total, is the operator of the Block 17 with a 40% interest. It is partnered with StatoilHydro 23.33%, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Ltd. 20%, and BP Exploration (Angola) Ltd. 16.67%.
