Offshore staff

CALGARY, Alberta -- Ithaca Energy has awarded contracts for an FPSO and development drilling for its Athena project in the UK central North Sea.

BW Offshore will supply the FPSO BW Carmen, to be renamed BW Athena, under a minimum three-year term extendable for up to eight years. The contract includes modifications to the vessel and installing it with a fixed mooring.  The vessel should be mobilized to the field at the end of next summer. Produced oil will be offloaded to tandem-moored shuttle tankers.

Three of Athena’s suspended appraisal wells will be completed for production, using downhole pumps supplemented by one new production well and one new water injector.

Transocean subsidiary ADTI has a letter of award to provide the semisubmersible Sedco 704 and drilling management services. The rig will be available from the end of this year.

Both contracts are subject to approval of the field development plan, which should come through in the next three weeks. Ithaca will shortly issue contracts for the subsea equipment such as moorings, flowlines, controls, power cables, pumps, and meters.

Athena is in block 14/18b in the Outer Moray Firth area. Ithaca operates the field with a 22.5% interest in partnership with Dyas UK (47.5%), EWE Aktiengesellschaft (20%), and Zeus Petroleum (10%).

09/10/2010