Malaysia’s Kikeh proves to be ‘field of firsts’

One of the advantages was the ability to bring on a large number of wells through the spar, which can accommodate a more accessible well pattern. “A DTU lowers drilling expenses, lowers life-of-field operating expenditure, enhances recovery, and enhances well intervention,” says Roger Jenkins, vice president, operations, for Murphy Sabah Oil Co., Ltd. “With the limitation of few vessels in the region capable of intervention services, the DTU is an obvious plus over an all-subsea concept. We see now that drilling costs would have been much higher with an all-subsea development using a MODU (mobile offshore drilling unit) for drilling.”

In the end, Murphy awarded Technip a full engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning (EPIC) contract to design theKikeh spar.

The contract included the delivery of the spar hull and topsides as well as the drilling and production riser systems and the marine installation, hookup, and commissioning of the facilities offshore.

“AlthoughKikeh isn’t a huge spar, it is definitely not on the small end when compared with the spars operating in the GoM,” Jenkins says. “In fact, this is probably one of the largest spars from a standpoint of well count,” Jenkins says, “because there are 24 well slots on the Kikeh spar.”

According to Technip, the spar is a good choice for Kikeh because it provides a stable floating platform that allows drilling and production via dry trees, significantly reducing cost and complexity of the drilling operations.

TheKikeh spar designed to accommodate a tender assist drilling (TAD) rig, comprising a temporary drilling derrick equipment set mounted on the spar and a semisubmersible drilling tender barge, which is moored alongside. This allows the operator to avoid the capital cost of installing permanent drilling equipment on the spar itself.

For the most part, the design principles and configuration for theKikeh spar hull are very similar to the GoM spars. One difference, however, is that the benign metocean criteria offshore Malaysia allowed the draft, freeboard, and weight of the spar hull to be decreased from a comparable GoM design.

Another plus was that the spar hull and topsides could be installed without using deepwater heavy lift vessels or DP construction barges, which are not readily available in the region. The topsides was designed to be installed by floatover, a first for spar installation.

Technip completed the world’s first open-sea catamaran floatover and topsides installation on theKikeh spar in early November of 2006.

Using the floatover method allowed a large amount of hook-up and pre-commissioning work to be completed onshore prior to load-out, which significantly reduced both the duration and cost of the offshore commissioning phase.

Murphy awarded Intec Engineering a contract for follow-on engineering services on the Kikeh project. Intec’s responsibilities included detailed design review of the field facilities, including the FPSO marine systems, FPSO processing and utility systems, DTU topsides facilities, flexible flowlines and risers, and subsea equipment.

As part of its contribution to the project, Intec designed the unique fluid transfer line that connects theKikeh spar to the Kikeh FPSO.

Intec also assisted Murphy to develop a gas pipeline to shore, including front-end engineering and design support, preparing bid documents, and evaluating bids. The 30-cm (12-in.) gas pipeline will allow produced gas to be monetized rather than re-injected into the reservoir.

Kikeh firsts

First deepwater development offshore Malaysia

First spar constructed in Malaysia

First spar installed outside the Gulf of Mexico

First topsides floatover onto a spar

First turret-moored FPSO in conjunction with a spar

First use of a tender assisted drilling rig on a spar.