Talisman Energy is due to go out to tender this week for what is believed to be Asia’s first tension leg wellhead platform (tlwp) for its upcoming Ca Rong Do development, offshore Vietnam.

Talisman which took over the operatorship of this project in Block 07/03 about 18 months ago from Premier Oil found itself in a quandary over what type of facility would be needed for this moderate, but not shallow water depth (320m) with no nearby infrastructure.

An fpso is also part of the development scheme and partner Petrovietnam has already agreed to install a 75km link to an existing gas pipeline system to shore.

There originally had been some consideration to installing a bottom founded jacket. The most recent structure of such size was the compliant tower installed in 366m on Chevron’s Tombua Landana (SEN, 23/16) development in Angola eight years ago. It is not clear why such a structure was not considered, but the development team opted for tension leg technology using a design said to be similar to the ones employed by Hess in Equatorial Guinea at Okume and Oveng.

What makes this interesting as well will be the use of steel catenary risers (scr) here. This is definitely the shallowest water depth application of scr technology anywhere and might prompt their wider use as they are distinctly less expensive than the alternatives - flexibles and riser towers.

Olé!

The fabrication tender is taking place in the shadow of the takeover of Talisman by Repsol which was first announced back in December in a deal valued at $8.3bn plus the assumption of debt.

Although Repsol is the bigger entity, Talisman is a strong hydrocarbon producing company and its acquisition will boost the Spanish company’s daily production by 76% to 680,000boe/d and total reserves by 55% to 2.3bnboe.

This week Talisman is to issue documents to its shareholders concerning the takeover in advance of a special meeting of shareholders scheduled for 20 February. Talisman management has recommended the deal, but still requires the approval of shareholders and the regulatory authorities. The expectation is that the deal will be finalised before the end of June.