Ithaca Energy's UK North Sea Stella field production is on schedule for September 2016, following planned sailaway of the FPF-1 floating production facility from Poland next month.
The FPF-1, previously used by Hess on the North Sea Ivanhoe and Rob Roy fields, was due to sailaway in Q1 this year, with first production in Q2. That schedule was set back to a Q3 first production, after delays around the unit's modification program, at the Remontowa shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, under contractor Petrofac.
A five-well Stella development drilling campaign had already been completed in April 2015.
Commissioning operations on the vessel are well advanced and close out of the marine work to ensure the vessel satisfies the required sail-away certification standards is progressing to plan, said Ithaca today.
Handover of the various processing, utilities and accommodation systems on the vessel from the modifications to the operations teams is on-going. The next key milestone will be the completion of deep water trials immediately prior to commencing the tow to the field.
This involves the FPF-1 being moved to a location off the coast of Gdansk in order to undertake the necessary marine system commissioning trials that cannot be done in the shallow waters of the shipyard.
It is anticipated that the period from sail-away to first production will be about three months. Following towing of the FPF-1 to the field, the vessel will be moored on location using twelve pre-installed anchor chains. The dynamic risers and umbilicals that connect the subsea infrastructure to the vessel will then be installed. Thereafter, commissioning of the various processing and utility systems that can only be undertaken on location with hydrocarbons from the field will be completed.