Category Archives: Jack / St. Malo
Jack – Discovered in July 2004 by the Discoverer Deep Seas drillship, the Jack oil field is located on Walker Ridge Blocks 758 and 759 in the Gulf of Mexico. Situated in approximately 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) of water, the ultra-deepwater discovery is located 270 miles (435 kilometers) southwest of New Orleans.
St Malo – Discovered in October 2003 by the Discoverer Spirit drillship, St. Malo is considered to be a major deepwater discovery in the Gulf of Mexico. The field is located on Walker Ridge Block 678 in a water depth of 2,100 feet (640 meters).
Gulf of Mexico: Chevron Announces Successful Production Well Test on St. Malo PS003 well
Chevron Corporation today announced that it had conducted a successful production test on the St. Malo PS003 well in the prolific Lower Tertiary trend in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Oil flow rates, though limited by testing equipment constraints, exceeded 13,000 barrels of oil per day.
The test, in Walker Ridge Block 678, targeted Lower Tertiary sands more than 20,000 feet (6,096 m) under the sea floor and was conducted during August and September 2012. This is the first development well in the St. Malo field, which is being jointly developed with the Jack field.
“The well test is a further demonstration of the potential of the Lower Tertiary and highlights our leadership in developing deepwater resources globally,” said Chevron Vice Chairman George Kirkland.
“The results of this production test further confirm the significance of the St. Malo field,” said Gary Luquette, president, Chevron North America Exploration and Production Company. “The jointly developed Jack and St. Malo fields are expected to provide a major step-up in Chevron’s production from 2014 and produce domestic energy for decades to come.”
The Jack and St. Malo fields are located within 25 miles (40 km) of each other and are being jointly developed with a host floating production unit located between the two fields in 7,000 feet (2,134 m) of water, approximately 280 miles (450 km) south of New Orleans, Louisiana. The facility is planned to have a design capacity of 177,000 barrels of oil-equivalent per day to accommodate production from the Jack/St. Malo development, which is estimated at a maximum total daily rate of 94,000 barrels of oil-equivalent, plus production from third-party tiebacks. Total project costs for the initial phase of the development are estimated at $7.5 billion.
Chevron has a working interest of 51 percent in the St. Malo field. Other owners of the St. Malo field are Petrobras (25 percent), Statoil (21.5 percent), ExxonMobil (1.25 percent) and ENI (1.25 percent).
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- InterMoor Completes IRIS Installation and Recovery for Apache in Gulf of Mexico, USA (mb50.wordpress.com)
Heading for Ingleside,TX: Largest Heavy Transport Vessel for Largest Offshore Platform Hull
The Dockwise Vanguard, the world’s largest semisubmersible Heavy Transport Vessel (HTV) to date, safely completed its first ever float-on operation earlier this week.
The vessel, loaded with the World’s largest semisubmersible offshore platform hull, the Jack/St. Malo, is now on her maiden voyage carrying the near 56,000 metric ton hull on her deck.
The Dockwise Vanguard successfully executed the float-on exercise of the Jack/St. Malo platform hull at the Silli-Do deep hole near the Samsung Heavy Industries yard in Geoje, South Korea. “The float-on operation was precisely and safely executed as planned. It took no more than 4 hours before the cargo stood firm on her cribbing,” states Ronald Goetheer, Project Manager at Dockwise. After almost two days of sea fastening, the Dockwise Vanguard departed at sunrise on the 12th of February, and will navigate around Cape of Good Hope heading towards the Kiewit yard in Ingleside, Texas, USA, where it is expected to arrive mid-April.
Dockwise Vanguard
The Dockwise Vanguard is an innovative semisubmersible HTV that is redefining the limits of exceptional heavy marine transport. The vessel has been designed to enable operators and contractors consider opportunities for mega offshore units which were until now considered unthinkable. With the loading capacity of up to 110,000 tons, the vessel is designed to serve the top end market focusing on next generation offshore
Companies in the Oil & Gas industry can now specify much larger and heavier offshore structures, and these can be integrated at a single fabrication site. These mega structures can then be transported onboard the vessel to remote offshore locations, even in harsh climates where no commissioning facilities are available. This feature can help reduce costs and optimize the overall project. In essence, the new vessel will play an important role in the field development philosophy of Oil companies, since it will be capable of transporting fully integrated mega offshore units.
The vessel’s design is also expected to help operators and developers create value. With its capabilities, timely and risky phases of offshore projects can be managed prior to hookup and commissioning. Interface optimization, higher degree of risk mitigation, lower insurance premiums, improved schedule flexibility, and reduced time-to-production – as well as reduced offshore man-hours – are a few examples of opportunities. In addition, the vessel’s advanced technical capabilities enable it to offer a completely new service: offshore dry-docking.
Increasingly, FPSOs are being located in remote areas that lack support infrastructure. In this circumstance, an offshore dry-docking service can be specially valuable. The Dockwise Vanguard’s FPSO dry-docking capacity offers inspection, maintenance, and repair opportunities (amongst others) at different conditional modes. The FPSO could remain connected to its mooring and turret system while keeping the riser systems intact, with the possibility of continuing limited production. In this scenario, the FPSO will still be able to freely weathervane around the turret mooring, with controlled heading made possible by the vessel’s propulsion system. The vessels capabilities completely avoid or significantly reduce downtime.
Innovative Design
The vessel is specifically designed to exceed the Oil & Gas industry’s expectations. “From the drawing board, we decided to engineer a truly exceptional vessel unlike others in the market,” states Michel Seij, Manager Engineering at Dockwise.
The Dockwise Vanguard is engineered to surpass current heavy marine transport limitations. The vessel’s deck covers a surface of 275 m x 70 m (902 ft x 230 ft) and is equipped with movable casings. In addition, the accommodation block and navigation bridge are located on the extreme starboard side. The vessel has no bow, and this, along with other design features, gives the vessel a unique appearance.
In addition, the vessel has a dedicated design for ultra-heavy units weighing up to 110,000 metric tons. Optimized deck strength and extreme wide-load capabilities are at the heart of the design philosophy; as are the vessel’s stability characteristics. It is equipped with a 27 MW redundant propulsion system consisting of two fixed propellers at the aft and two retractable azimuth thrusters at the bow. These can reach a maximum transit speed of 14 knots, which translates to average service speeds of 11-13 knots with cargo. In addition, the vessel allows for 16 m (53 ft) water above deck, accommodating cargoes with a higher draft.
Largest Heavy Transport Vessel for Largest Offshore Platform Hull| Offshore Energy Today.
VIDEO: Dockwise Takes Dockwise Vanguard Vessel
Following sea trials during the past few weeks, Dockwise, a Dutch heavy lift and transportation specialist, now confirms the delivery of Dockwise Vanguard. The vessel has left the yard of Hyundai Heavy Industries (“HHI”) this morning and started its maiden trip.
Dockwise Vanguard will sail to the Samsung Heavy Industries (“SHI”) yard in Korea to pick up the giant hull of the Jack / St Malo semi-submersible floating production facility for transportation to the US Gulf of Mexico.
“We are pleased to see Dockwise Vanguard leave the yard following a delivery without a single LTI (Lost Time Incident), on schedule for its maiden trip for one of our key customers. As said before, we are confident that that the Vanguard will rapidly earn its place in the market and has the potential to create a new market of its own”, comments André Goedée, Dockwise’s CEO..
VIDEO: Dockwise Takes Dockwise Vanguard Vessel| Offshore Energy Today
- The Netherlands: Boskalis Holds 40 Pct Shares in Dockwise (worldmaritimenews.com)
- State-of-the-Art Heavy-Lift Vessel Dockwise Vanguard Ready for Sea Trials (worldmaritimenews.com)
- Dockwise Awarded Nearly $60 Million in New Contracts (gcaptain.com)
Chevron: Oil, gas output from Jack/St Malo could double
13 Mar 2012, 7.06 pm GMT
New York, 13 March (Argus) — Chevron said its efforts to boost recoveries in the Lower Tertiary trend of the US Gulf of Mexico may double the amount of crude and natural gas extracted from its $7.5bn Jack/St Malo development.
The October 2010 decision to go forward with Jack/St Malo was predicated on recovering less than 10pc of the crude and gas in place, or about 500mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) over the life of the deepwater development. Technological advances may drive recoveries to more than 20pc, or 1bn boe, Chevron North American upstream president Gary Luquette said today.
“We have effectively added a half billion barrels to Jack/St Malo, and we’re looking to apply what we’ve learned here to other Lower Tertiary developments,” Luquette said.
Deepwater projects will be key in Chevron’s plan to boost upstream production by 20pc, to 3.3mn boe/d, by 2017. The company aims to increase its global deepwater output to 470,000 boe/d from 375,000 boe/d. The Jack/St Malo platform, which will have a tieback to at least one other field, will have capacity to handle 170,000 b/d of oil and 42.5mn cubic feet/day of gas.
Lessons learned from early struggles with the Shell-operated Perdido development, which began production in March 2010, will help with other Lower Tertiary projects in the Gulf, Luquette said. Perdido was slower to ramp up than planned, but now is at more than 90,000 boe/d.
Chevron intervened to make design changes to the Hess-operated Tubular Bells project, also in the Lower Tertiary trend, increasing the major’s confidence that the development will be done on budget and on plan, Luquette said.
Jack/St Malo and Tubular Bells are both scheduled to commence production in 2014, as is the Chevron-operated Big Foot project in the Lower Tertiary.
Lower Tertiary oil deposits are beneath a thick salt canopy, making exploration more difficult, and are characterized by high pressure, high temperature and low porosity.
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USA: BMT to Provide Simulation Services for Production Platforms Towing
Hereema Marine Contractors Nederland B.V Inc. (“HMC”) has awarded a contract to BMT Fluid Mechanics in partnership with BMT ARGOSS, to provide Tow Simulation Services for the inshore tow of Chevron-operated Jack St. Malo and Big Foot Production Platforms to be installed in the Gulf of Mexico.
BMT will be engineering, procuring, installing and commissioning a purpose built simulation facility to be located in Houston, Texas, for the purpose of training tug captains and other marine personnel involved with the inshore towing of the platforms from the Ingleside integration yards. The inshore tows are particularly challenging because of the extremely small hull clearances within the shipping channels leading from the yards out to the gulf. Up to five independently controlled tug boats will be effectively, rigidly coupled to the hull to perform the 15 mile wet-tows.
BMT’s PC Rembrandt real time maneuvering training software will be the basis of the simulator. The simulator will provide a realistic hands-on facility for tug captains to develop safe operating strategies for the tow and develop rational weather and tide operating limits.
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