Sea Trucks Lands Tullow Jubilee Work
Friday 14 October 2016
Dutch offshore contractor Sea Trucks Group has won a deal from Tullow Oil to support work at the operator’s trouble-hit floater on the Jubilee field off Ghana.
Sea Trucks will provide heavy-lift and accommodation support services for the Kwame Nkrumah floating production, storage and offloading unit on the producing field.
The DP3 accommodation hook-up vessel Jascon 28 will perform both work scopes.
The vessel will have to lift two 50-tonne fairlead chain stopper foundation block structures as well as a 43-tonne mooring pull-in winch and other items. It will also provide accommodation for 120 people.
Offshore activities are set to begin this quarter and last for two months, with an option to extend the contract by up to 30 days.
This is Sea Trucks’ maiden contract with Tullow, and comes after other recent contract wins. This week secured a contract to provide an accommodation vessel, Jascon 30, on a deep-water field off Nigeria for an unnamed international oil company. That deal will last for three months, plus extension options.
Late last month it scored a charter for its Jascon 31 unit to provide accommodation and lifting services for Mexico’s Permaducto at Pemex-operated Ku Maloob Zaap (KMZ) and Abkatun oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tullow recently confirmed more insurance cover for the Kwame Nkrumah unit following problems earlier this year with the turret, which have forced the operator into a costly long-term solution for the floater.
That long-term solution involves converting the floater into a permanently spread-moored facility, which will lead to a temporary shut-in and change in operating and offtake procedures. Offtake is currently carried out via shuttle tankers and will continue to be so until the end of the year, before it is done through a new deep-water offloading buoy.
The work programme for the two phases is estimated at between $100 million and $150 million gross, with a resultant shutdown of eight to 12 weeks in the first half. Additional operating expenses are estimated at $115 million gross this year and $80 million gross next year. The cost of the buoy is not yet known.