Chevron Looks Ahead on Anchor, Tigris
Monday 24 October 2016
US supermajor moving towards concept selection for two separate deep-water developments
US supermajor Chevron is understood to be wrapping up internal concept selection for a pair of potential developments in the deep-water US Gulf of Mexico, eyeing a semi-submersible design for both its Anchor discovery and the multi-field cluster known as Tigris.
Industry sources emphasised the project remains in its early days, but the company is expected to be approaching the start of an external pre-front-end engineering and design process and has begun to increase budget and personnel commitments for the pair.
Both developments are envisaged as producing via mid-sized semisubs that could be progressed more or less as a pair, potentially under a “design one, build two” approach. Capacity is seen as up to 100,000 barrels per day.
Anchor, though discovered later, may come first, with Tigris, spanning the Tiber, Guadalupe and Gibson discoveries, to follow after six to nine months.
Chevron has said little about potential upcoming US Gulf developments lately as it has wrangled with megaprojects ranging from Gorgon and Wheatstone in Australia to the Big Foot tension-leg platform in the US Gulf, which saw first oil pushed back to 2018 amid tendon equipment failures.
However, bringing down facility costs will be key as the company looks ahead, both in terms of drilling costs as well as getting the facilities “right-sized,” Jay Johnson, Chevron executive vice president upstream, told investors on a conference call.
“Rather than chasing for peak production, for example, we may go with smaller facilities that have a longer plateau of production, higher capital efficiency,” Johnson said when asked for an update on the project pair.
“So as we look at driving the cost per barrel and the development costs down, I think that is what’s going to be required for new projects to be competitive with other opportunities in our portfolio.”
It is not known what approach Chevron might take via external engineering, but it should have ample options for semisub designs, which have increasingly gained favour among operators for relative ease of tieback hook-up, larger deck space and ability for quayside integration.
The proposed pair would lie somewhere between Chevron’s two existing operated semisubs in the US Gulf — Blind Faith, with capacity for 65,000 bpd, and the giant Jack-St Malo, designed to produce up to 170,000 bpd from Lower Tertiary reservoirs.
Some suggest Blind Faith, which came online in 2008, may be seen as a reference point by Chevron on the project, making designer Aker a natural contender in pursuing similar work.
The Norwegian company in recent weeks also revealed its “Lean Semi” design, a blueprint for marginal fields based on the standardised design that formed the basis for Chevron’s platform.
Blind Faith’s hull was built by the-then Aker Kvaerner in Verdal, Norway, with topsides engineered by Wood Group Mustang and built by Gulf Island Fabrication in Houma, Louisiana.
However, Chevron, also more recently finished off work on another high-profile semisub at Jack-St Malo, which drew first oil in late 2014.
That hull was designed by KBR subsidiary GVA and built by Samsung Heavy Industries, while topsides work was handled by Wood Group Mustang and built by Kiewit Offshore Services in Ingleside, Texas.
Other popular semisub options in the US Gulf of late have included Exmar’s Opti-Ex design, the basis for Llog Exploration’s Delta House and Who Dat facilities, which have turned industry heads for low cost and fast turnaround.
More recently, it was reported that Anadarko has selected SBM Offshore to provide a semisub for the Shenandoah development. The Netherlands-based company previously designed the Thunder Hawk facility.