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Shell Perdido Spar Reaches the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of Mexico: The Shell-operated Perdido Regional Development Spar has arrived in the ultra deepwat...
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Shell Perdido Spar Reaches the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of Mexico: The Shell-operated Perdido Regional Development Spar has arrived in the ultra deepwaters of the Gulf of Mexico and is currently being secured to the seafloor in about 8,000 feet of water. Once completed, the Perdido spar will be nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower and weigh as much as 10,000 cars. Perdido will be the deepest oil development in the world, the deepest drilling and production platform in the world and have the deepest subsea well in the world.
It will be moored by nine chain and polyester rope mooring lines, to an area of the sea bed the size of downtown Houston. On the sea floor, 22 wells will be linked to the Perdido spar above. Oil and gas will be pumped to the surface against the extreme pressure of the deepwater by 1,500 horse-power electric pumps.
The Perdido spar was towed 160 nautical miles in just less than two days to its final work site, an area called Alaminos Canyon Block 857 in the Gulf of Mexico.
Positioning the spar into place required carefully-orchestrated maneuvers. The big spar - 550 feet long and 118 feet in diameter arrived floating on its side. The task was to upend it, rotating it from a horizontal to a vertical floating position. It took dozens of people from deepwater construction vessel Balder working non-stop for nearly 24 hours.
Perdido will be a fully functional oil and gas platform with a drilling rig and direct vertical access wells, full oil and gas processing and remote subsea wells. The facility is designed to produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day and 200 million standard cubic feet of gas.
The Perdido Spar will bring in production from three fields: Great White, Silvertip and Tobago. These fields are located in 10 Outer Continental Shelf blocks in Alaminos Canyon, approximately 200 miles south of Freeport, Texas. This development will provide the first Gulf of Mexico commercial production from a Paleogene reservoir. All three fields have been granted production units from the Minerals Management Service and the accumulations are completely in US waters, some eight miles north of Mexico international borders. The production from these fields will be transported via new and existing pipelines to US refineries. First production from Perdido is expected around the turn of the decade.
The Perdido Spar will provide living quarters for 150 industry personnel. The helicopter landing deck will also set new industry records, accommodating two long-range Sikorsky S92 helicopters simultaneously, each holding up to 24 passengers and crew.
The construction of the spar was completed in Pori, Finland and travelled on May the 27th 2008, 8,200 miles for 23 days to Kiewit Offshore Services fabrication yard in Ingleside, Texas USA, before being moved to its final destination in the Gulf of Mexico, on the 8th of August 2008.
The spar, which is 39 meters (118 feet) in diameter and 170 meters (555 feet) tall, and weighs approximately 22,000 short tons. The construction of the spar began in November 2006 to safely complete without any lost time injuries, requiring more than two million man hours.
Shell has a proven track record for delivery of these types of systems, and the Perdido project is part of Shells continuing commitment to achieving technically challenging exploration firsts in the search for precious energy resources.
Shell, the 35% shareholder of the Perdido Regional Development Spar, is operator on behalf of partners BP (27.5%) and Chevron (37.5%). Perdido is scheduled to begin production towards the end of the decade.
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