Deepwater Horizon: Third oil recovery vessel targets July 7 service

Offshore staff

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the threat of Hurricane Alex past, the Deepwater Horizon incident commander, Admiral Thad Allen, says work will restart to connect the flexible riser with the third collection vessel, the Helix Producer. If the sea state returns to its levels prior to the storm, and if the support vessels arrive, Allen says work on the connection could begin within 48 hours and that would put the Helix Producer online around July 7.
When online, the Producer will bring the total recovery capacity up to 53,000 b/d of oil. Once that vessel is in place and receiving oil, Allen says it should be possible to get a better fix on the flow rate of the well which could affect decisions about proceeding with various options.

Also, the second vertical riser is being installed which is scheduled to bring another containment vessel online around July 15. The total recovery rate then becomes 60,000 – 80,000 b/d of oil.

Relief well drilling was not affected by the story and the Development Driller III is at 11,817 ft below the seabed and moving carefully in order to locate the Macando wellbore.


07/02/2010