Offshore staff

HOUSTON – BPZ Energy has issued contracts for fabrication, mobilization, and installation of a second platform at the Corvina field in block Z-1 offshore Peru.

The company estimates the total cost of the new CX-15 platform, including all production and compression equipment, at $60 million. Installation off Peru should take place by end-July 2012 with first production expected during 4Q 2012.

CX-15 will be a buoyant tower with 12,200 b/d of oil production capacity; gas compression capacity of 12.8 MMcf/d; and produced water handling and injection capacity of 3,500 b/d. The tower will comprise four cylindrical cells and will be connected to the seabed by a single suction pile integral to the hull structure. It will have 24 drilling slots, some of which will be used for gas and water re-injection wells.

The new platform will be about 1 mi (1.6 km) from the existing CX-11 Corvina platform, with both interconnected via subsea pipelines. It will help BPZ produce around 22 MMbbl of undeveloped oil reserves from the field.

GMC and Horton Wison Deepwater have completed front-end engineering and design work for the buoyant tower, while Audubon Engineering is handling engineering and design for the production equipment.

Wison Offshore and Marine will build the platform at its yard in Nantong, China, with GMC providing project management and design. Procurement of certain equipment items and steel is under way.

The tower and decks with the production equipment will be transported from Nantong to Corvina on a semisubmersible heavy-lift vessel. Following upending, fixed and variable ballast will be pumped into the hull to provide stability for the platform.

Manolo Zuniga, president and CEO of BPZ Energy, said: “The buoyant tower design was chosen because it is relatively simple to fabricate and economical compared to other platform solutions. This design is a variation of a concept in use in the Gulf of Mexico deepwater, which we will bring into shallow water and Peru for the first time."

10/03/2011