Shell Offshore Inc. has let a contract to Seatrium Ltd. to construct and integrate the hull, topsides, and living quarters of the Sparta semi-submersible floating production unit (FPU) in the US Gulf of Mexico, including installation of Shell-furnished equipment.
The contract comes following the Shell plc subsidiary’s mid-December 2023 final investment decision (FID) to develop the Sparta deep-water project and the letter of intent entered by the companies in August 2023, the service provider said in a release Jan. 2 (OGJ Online, Dec. 19, 2023).
The FPU will lie in the Garden Banks area of the US Gulf of Mexico, about 275 km (171 miles) off the coast of Louisiana in water depths over 1,400 m, initially with eight oil and gas producing wells. It will feature a single topside bolstered by a four-column, semi-submersible floating hull and is designed to produce 90,000 boe/d.
The Sparta award is the third FPU newbuild awarded to Seatrium by Shell, following deliveries of the Vito and Whale FPUs. An enhanced replication of Vito and Whale, Sparta replicates about 95% of Whale's hull and 85% of Whale's topsides, Shell said.
Sparta currently has an estimated, discovered recoverable resource volume of 244 MMboe.
