From Amsterdam: ENI and Mellitah Oil and Gas will award a contract for the gas gathering system for the Bahr Essalam phase 2 development in Block NC41 offshore Libya before year-end.

Phase 2 of the development, which is in 190 to 205 m of water 110km off Tripoli, will cover the delivery of gas output from two new wells from the C Central A area and 10 wells from the C East area to the existing Sabratha platform.

Gas and condensate production will be partially treated on the Sabratha platform and then sent onshore to the Mellitah plant for final treatment.

Current production from the Bahr Essalam Phase 1 project is running at 27.3 MMcm/d, while phase 2 is expected to add production of 12.6 MMcm/d. Total cost of the overall project is put at $2 billion.

Mellitah chairman Abulfattah Shagan told the Offshore Energy Conference in Amsterdam, “We have already awarded a $330 million contract for a subsea production system to OneSubsea and we are now working on the EPIC [engineering, procurement, installation and construction] contract for gas gathering.

“We have had some issues with this and it has been delayed but it is still under commercial negotiation with vendors.”

He said that despite difficult operating conditions in Libya and problems obtaining visas to travel, technical negotiations with suppliers had taken place in Malta.

The contract to be awarded will encompasses detail design, procurement, construction, fabrication and installation of gas gathering lines.

This includes all mechanical, coating, painting, insulation, cathodic protection, load out, transportation, laying/trenching/installation, pre-commissioning, commissioning, and assistance during start up.

Development of the Eastern area covers a total of 10 wells divided into two cluster manifolds, ECE and MCE, with five wells each.

These will be connected to existing risers and J-tubes on the Sabratha platform. ECE will be a 13.2 km tieback and MCE 9.6 km.

A new cluster in C Central Area a for two wells will be tied back 10.7km to Sabratha, while a third well will be tied back 5 km to a dedicated pre-installed in-line tee.

Subsea facilities in this area include a pipeline end manifold collecting production from wells CC-16 and CC-17, subsea Xmas trees for the wells, a subsea production control system, an 8-in. 10.7 km production line and a control umbilical. The wells were drilled earlier this year by the Ensco 5004.

In the C East area new subsea facilities include an end cluster manifold collecting production from five wells, CE01, CE07, CE08, CE09 and CE10.

Another manifold will be installed at the Mid C East cluster for the other five wells, CE02, CE03, CE04, CE05 AND CE06.

The 10 subsea Xmas trees will be installed, along with a subsea production control system, an electro-hydraulic control umbilical to deliver power and chemicals to the subsea system.

A 13.2 km 20-in. production line and an 8-in. production test line will connect the mid C East cluster manifold to the platform.