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Tui oil field’s FPSO vessel Umaroa takes up station
9 May 2007 - The Tui oil field’s floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel Umaroa has arrived at the field where it will play a key role in controlling oil production from the offshore Taranaki field.
Operator Australian Worldwide Exploration says in its March quarter report that development drilling was well advanced and other offshore installation work is well underway.
AWE says the $US245 million Tui project (in PMP 38 158) remains on schedule to deliver first oil by the end of June.
The Tui field which lies 50 kilometres offshore Taranaki, northwest of the Maui field, has estimated reserves of 27.9 million barrels.
FPSO Umaroa has the capability to process 120,000 barrels of fluids per day and store up to 730,000 barrels of oil. Control of the four submersible wellheads is also based on the FPSO which will be permanently moored over the Tui field. The Tui oil will be offloaded into tankers shuttling between the Tui oil fields and refineries.
Umuroa which is operated by Norwegian company, Prosafe, was converted from being an oil tanker at the Keppel shipyards in Singapore and arrived in Taranaki on April 21 and has been connected to its turret mooring system. This system allows the vessel to weather-vane around the turret allowing year round production.
Prior to the vessel’s arrival considerable offshore installation activities were completed. These included pre-installation of the nine permanent FPSO anchors and mooring chains.
The four mid-water arches (that the flexible risers will lay across) were successfully deployed, and all four gas lift lines were laid on the sea floor, as were two of the four production flowlines.
As part of the drilling operation, all four wellheads and associated subsea ‘trees’ have been installed, and progressively will be tied to their respective flowlines and umbilicals. Remaining subsea installation work includes the laying of the remaining two production flowlines, laying of the four umbilical lines and installing all the flexible marine risers that will connect the FPSO to the flowlines and umbilicals.
AWE’s latest drilling report says the third for the project’s four wells Amokura-2H had reached a measured depth of 5239 metres including an interval of approximately 1295 metres of horizontal section in the oil reservoir and was drilling ahead. The Amokura well is expected to be completed by mid May after which the semi-submersible rig Ocean Patriot will return to the partly drilled Pateke-3H well, which is expected to be completed by the end of June.
Source: AWE
