Saipem Lands on Venus for Kaombo
Thursday 15 February 2018
Italy’s Saipem has contracted GranEnergia’s newbuild accommodation unit Venus to support development work on Total’s Kaombo project off Angola.
The dynamically-positioned semi-submersible vessel, delivered from China’s Fujian Mawei yard to the Dutch contractor earlier this month, has been fixed by Saipem on a firm three-month charter due to start in April, with optional extensions for three months.
The contract value is though being kept confidential.
Total aims to launch delayed production this summer at the Kaombo field in Block 32 from the first of two floating production, storage and offloading vessels that are being converted by Saipem for the $16 billion development scheme.
The two Total-owned FPSOS are being converted by Singapore-based SembCorp, with Saipem’s Karimum yard in Indonesia building a large amount of the topsides.
The second FPSO will not expected to start up until 2019, with full output from Kaombo to come in late 2019 or early 2020.