From Houston (BN): Noble is pushing forward with two big projects in the Gulf of Mexico -- tieback of BIG BEND (SEN, 31/16) in Mississippi Canyon 698 and DANTZLER (31/22) in MC 782 to the Thunder Hawk platform in MC 736 and linking of the Gunflint unit in MC 948, 949, 992 and 993 to the Gulfstar 1 platform in MC 724.

Regulators have approved plans for a one-well tieback from Big Bend, and a two-well tieback from Dantzler through Big Bend. After 74 days to install flow lines, it’s about 10 days of work to link the wells up. Production is due to start later this year.

In the case of Gunflint, two wells will be tied via jumpers to 8-inch pipelines that will carry oil 21km to Gulfstar 1. The work is targeted for next year with production to start in August 2016.

Regulators have told W&T Energy it must modify its plan before it can win approval to further develop its VIRGO prospect in 345m in Viosca Knoll blocks 779, 822 and 823, about 200km southeast of New Orleans.

W&T proposes three additional 120-day wells, one in each block, to be drilled from the existing Virgo platform in VK 823.

Work on this plan originally submitted in May 2013 was to start last year and be finished this year, but delays appear likely. The field is a producer of oil and condensate but not a big one, so the oil price collapse may have slowed progress.

In the category of gifts that keep on giving, Hess’ plan to drill another well in its CONGER field has received a green light.

The well in Garden Banks block 215, originally leased way back in 1987 and unitised in 1994, would be the tenth and would be tied back via an existing flowline to Shell’s Salsa/Enchilada development. Work is to begin at the end of this year targeting API 38-degree oil. The site is in 443m about 300km south-southwest of New Orleans.

The Alpha compression module for the UK Southern North Sea CYGNUS (31/20) project has sailed away from the Heerema Hartlepool yard after two and a half years of construction.

The module is now on its way to the Cygnus field which has gross 2P reserves of approximately 18bcm of gas. The Cygnus Alpha Wellhead Platform sailed away in May 2014.

The detailed development concept for the field consists of two drilling centres, Cygnus Alpha and Cygnus Bravo and four platforms in total.

Some 10 development wells will be drilled initially and the planned gas export route is through the ETS pipeline system to the Bacton gas terminal in North Norfolk.

A 51km 24-inch export pipeline will be tied-in to the existing ETS pipeline. A 5.9km 12-inch intra-field pipeline and umbilical will connect Alpha to Bravo.

Gas production from the field will amount to around 5% of total UK gas production. GDF Suez (38.75%) operates for Centrica (48.75%) and Bayerngas (12.5%).

ABB has received orders worth $100mn from Hyundai Heavy Industries for electrical and telecommunication systems for the NASR full field development project (package 2) off Abu Dhabi.

ABB will supply 28 bays of compact 132 kV GIS for one onshore and two offshore platform installations as well as medium voltage products including 33kV gas-insulated switchgear and 11kV and 6.6kV air-insulated switchgear.

‘Power from shore can be an environmentally friendly and cost effective alternative to on board power generation on offshore installations,’ ABB said.

InterMoor has completed its role in the foundation installation for BP’s JUNIPER (31/13) gas project offshore Trinidad and Tobago.

The final stage of the project involved hooking up Diamond Offshore Drilling’s Ocean Victory semi-submersible drilling rig to the preset mooring spread InterMoor had previously installed.

InterMoor designed and fabricated eight piles (1.2m in diameter by 39m long) at its facility in Morgan City, U.S., and provided offshore project management services for the mooring preset campaign.

CNOOC has upgraded the facilities at its LUDA 10-1 oil field offshore China and brought it into production.

The Luda 10-1 oil field is located in Liaodong Bay of Bohai with an average water depth of about 30m. The Luda 10-1 adjustment project has seen one wellhead platform built to add to the existing infrastructure.

There are currently 13 wells producing about 3,300b/d of crude oil. The adjustment project is expected to reach peak production of around 6,000b/d of crude in 2016.

VAALCO Energy has brought the Southeast Etame 2-H well, the first development well drilled in the SOUTHEAST ETAME (30/10) field off Gabon, online at a rate of about 3,400 b/d of oil.

The well is producing from the Gamba formation which is the source of all other VAALCO production in the Etame Marin permit area but the first production from this new, previously- unproduced field.

The Transocean Constellation II jack-up rig has been moved to a second slot on the same platform to drill the North Tchibala 1-H well that is targeting the Dentale formation in another previously-unproduced field (North Tchibala), which was discovered and delineated by prior wells but has not been placed on production.

Oil & Gas UK has released updated guidelines for WELL ABANDONMENT, together with accompanying guidance on generating cost estimates to support activities.

The aim is to improve cross industry understanding of well-related issues on the UKCS.

Oonagh Werngren, Oil & Gas UK’s operations director, said, 'As the sector steps up its effort to tackle its cost base and improve efficiency, the guidelines on well abandonment cost estimation provide industry with a common framework in which to generate more consistent and complete cost estimates.’

FOUNDOCEAN has carried out grouting procedures on a project at 1,615m in the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to this FoundOcean had operated at 1,370m when it successfully installed a crossover fabric formwork in the region.

FoundOcean’s engineering manager Pauric Whelan said, ‘This project forced an entire rethink of our deepwater procedures and when we finally mobilised, our planning and contingencies provided us, and our client, with a high level of reassurance.’

Technip has been awarded a contract by Trans Adriatic Pipeline for a project designed to transport gas from the SHAH DENIZ (32/7) field in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan to the European market.

The project scope includes an approximately 870km long pipeline, which will start from the tie-in with the TANAP portion of the Southern Gas Corridor project, at the Greece/Turkey border.

The pipeline will then go through Greece and Albania, to eventually cross subsea the Adriatic Sea to end in Puglia, Italy, where it will connect to the Italian natural gas network.

The contract awarded to Technip will cover the onshore portion of the pipeline from Greece to Albania and in Italy.

Lundin has successfully installed the topside modules on the EDVARD GRIEG (32/7) field, offshore Norway.

Four modules were lifted onto the pre-installed jacket – the main deck frame, the utility and living quarters module, the processing module and the flare boom with a total weight of 22,000t.

The lift operation was carried out by Heerema’s heavy lift vessel Thialf. The final offshore hook up and commissioning of the modules is underway with production expected to begin in Q4 2015.

Research from NEL, the flow measurement R&D specialist, has revealed that the North Sea oil and gas sector could be misreporting over £700mn per year because of its reliance on the American AGA-8 standard to measure gas composition of North Sea fields.

NEL said it is now increasingly seeing significant mis-measurement of gas production as more North Sea fields are falling outside the pipeline quality gas specifications required to obtain the 0.1% uncertainty of the AGA-8 method.

By using established alternative methods and calculation models, NEL has identified measurement errors of several percent, which is 10 times the uncertainty that would be identified using the AGA-8 method.

‘If this was to affect the bulk of the maturing North Sea fields, it could amount to a financial exposure of over £700mn per annum. This poses a major problem for the maturing oil and gas sector worldwide, creating serious financial exposure, both for allocation measurement between operators using shared pipelines and for fiscal taxation reporting,’ NEL said.

Offshore