From Houston (BN): Anadarko has confirmed first oil at its ambitious deepwater LUCIUS (31/16) project in the far southern reaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

The $2.8bn project is based on a spar moored in 2,160m in Keathley Canyon 874-875-918-919, some 440km southwest of New Orleans. The floater has a processing capacity of 80,000 b/d and 12.8mcm/d handling flow from six subsea development wells.

The facility will also handle gas from ExxonMobil’s nearby Hadrian South (28/24) development in KC964.

It has been a long road. Lucius, estimated to contain 300mmboe, was discovered in 2009, appraised in 2010 and the project sanctioned in 2011. The 184m, 20,700t spar was built in Pori, Finland and towed to Kiewit’s Ingleside, TX yard near Corpus Christi in May 2013 for mating with the topsides Kiewitt was building.

The spar was towed to its operating site in the GoM and installed in October 2013. The topside was towed out to the spar and installed in the spring of 2014. Oil will be piped ashore by the Southeast Keathley Canyon Pipeline Co and the gas via a Discovery Producer Services line.

Anadarko Lucius operates (27.8%) for Plains Offshore, ExMob, Apache, Petrobras, Eni and Teikoku (INPEX).

From Australia (RW): Matrix Composites & Engineering has delivered one of the world’s largest installation buoyancy structures to Heerema Marine Contractors for use on Inpex‘s ICHTHYS (31/17) gas-to-LNG project off Western Australia.

The structure weighs 103t in air and provides 150t of uplift in water. It has been constructed from a modular design so that it can be assembled in numerous 3D configurations to meet project requirements.

The structure is part of the modular installation buoyancy package to be used to deploy subsea structures at Ichthys by Heerma’s installation vessel Aegir.

Together they will install the flowline end termination and in-line tee structures onto the seabed 250m below the surface.

The buoy is made up of 72 standard elements held in place with a through member. Overall the structure is 12.3m high and 6.44m long.

Apart from enabling multiple configurations as required, the modular design also enables any damaged element to be removed rather than replacing the entire module. Matrix believes the system is a more cost-effective and flexible solution compared to customised buoyancy structures.

Shell is reportedly continuing its sell-down of its Brazilian assets by parting with its 80% shareholding in the BIJUPIRA-SALEMA fpso development to HRT.

Bijupira-Salema came to Shell as part of its takeover of Enterprise Oil back in 2002. Last year it sold a 23% stake in its Parque das Conchas development (SEN, 30/12) to Qatar Petroleum, while HRT acquired its first domestic offshore production through a deal for the Polvo field.

Premier Oil’s Bream (31/13) field in Norway has been renamed VETTE and the fpso development is being looked at closely for cost saving opportunities in advance of the plan for development being filed later this year...London Marine Consultants, a subsidiary of Ezra Holdings, is to design and supply an external bow-mounted turret system for Petrobras’ LIBRA (31/18) extended well test fpso. The unit is being supplied by a joint venture of Teekay Offshore and Odebrecht Oil & Gas based on the converted shuttle tanker Navion Norvegia...Production at the HUNTINGTON (31/14) field fpso continues to be constrained by problems with the CATS gas export system...Semi production unit FPF-1 due to operate for Ithaca Energy in the GREATER STELLA AREA (31/13) in the UK will be delivered for first oil in Q3 of this year.

From Australia (RW): The first custom-built LNG carrier for the PNG-LNG (31/4) project fleet has been named Papua in a ceremony at Hudong in China. The vessel has been built by the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipping Group and will be operated by the Mitsui OSK Lines on behalf of ExxonMobil. It is the largest vessel of its type built in China and has a capacity for loading 172,000m3 of LNG.

Papua will be delivered in the next month or two. Along with three other carriers - The Spirit of Helga, Gigira Laitebo and another being built at Hudong - it will be dedicated to ship PNG-LNG to Asian customers.

Shell, GdF Suez, the Gas Authority India Ltd (GAIL) and a local distribution company have signed two memoranda of understanding for the development of a FLOATING LNG TERMINAL off the southeast corner of India in Andhra Pradesh.

The semi drilling unit COSL PROSPECTOR, recently delivered to COSL Drilling Europe, is the first to use the GG5000 hull design developed by Wood Group Mustang. The unit designed for waters to 1,500m is scheduled to operate in the Norwegian sector...Hyundai Heavy Industries’ new deepwater drillship design HD12000 which will be able to handle the latest 20kpsi bop has received approval in principle from classification society ABS.

IRM specialist N-Sea has extended its charter of the subsea construction unit SIEM N-SEA for an additional six years.

Offshore