Nexen Petroleum is to end production from the Ettrick field in the North Sea and remove the floating production facility FPSO Aoka Mizu from the location.
Nexen, which is owned by China National Offshore Corporation, terminated a contract with FPSO provider Bluewater in March. Bluewater said in a market update yesterday that production from the Ettrick field will cease on 1 June, and decommissioning of the vessel will start from that date. Redeployment opportunities for the Aoka Mizu are being sought.
The Blackbird and Ettrick fields are in the Outer Moray Firth, 75mi northeast of Aberdeen. Last year, Nexen commissioned Xodus to deliver a front end engineering and design exercise to outline the decommissioning methodology for the fields, which include 13 wells and about 30mi of flowlines and umbilicals.
Ettrick was discovered in 1981, but didn't go into production until 2009. Blackbird was discovered in 2008 and came on stream in 2011. Buoy and moorings removal is expected in 2017-18, well plugging and abandonment in 2018-19 and subsea infrastructure removal in 2019-2020. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change's online field database, production at Blackbird and Ettrick, in about 370m water depth, has already ceased.
The Aoka Mizu is the seventh Bluewater designed, built, owned and operated FPSO. It has been deployed at the Ettrick and Blackbird fields for Nexen Petroleum UK since August 2009.
Bluewater also says that the FPSO Glas Dowr left the Kitan field on 27 February. Bluewater is addressing outstanding contractual matters with the client to establish final close out and reach settlement of the last portion of the remaining termination fee payment.
To remind, the FPSO Glas Dowr has been producing from the Kitan field, in the Timor Sea, off Australia, for Italian operator Eni. Eni terminated the contract for convenience and operations ended on 14 December 2015.
The disconnection project for the FPSO Glas Dowr started in February and is conducted by Technip and Australia’s Neptune was contracted to provide air diving services.
Subscribe
