Ophir Energy has awarded an upstream construction for its Fortuna floating LNG project - west Africa's first deepwater FLNG project - to Schlumberger company OneSubsea and Subsea 7's Subsea Integration Alliance.
The contract is an engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning (EPCIC) contract for the subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) and for the subsea production systems scope of work.
The scope of the EPCIC is to deliver 440 MMscf/d of gas through infrastructure comprising four wells (three into the Fortuna field and one into the underlying Viscata field) at 1790m average water depth.
Planned delivery of first gas is 2020. Works will start on final investment decision (FID), which is due before the end of 2017, at which point Ophir Equatorial Guinea (Block R) - an Ophir Energy subsidiary - will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Fortuna (comprising Ophir and OneLNG).
Fortuna sits in Block R, some 140km west of Bioko Island, in the southeastern Niger Delta complex. Ophir took on the license in 2006 and two years later discovered Fortuna, in 1680-1850m water depth, and 800m reservoir depth. In 2009, Ophir hit at the Lykos-1 well. Appraisal wells were drilled in 2012 (Fortuna East-1, Fortuna West-1 and Tonel-1) and then 2014, when it ran a drill stem test (DST) (Fortuna-2 and also the Silenus East-1 well).
The main Fortuna field, which has 35-40% porosity and 1000-1300mD, is estimated to contain some 3.7 Tcf recoverable resource, or 4 Tcf if compression is used, which Ophir plans to.
Ophir, currently 80% interest holder in Block R, had considered a subsea development with pipeline to shore, some 140km away, where there are existing LNG facilities on Bioko Island. But, thanks to the modest topsides processing equipment required for the dry gas, FLNG was the clear winner, using a leased FLNG unit to reduce capex outlay for Ophir.
Read more: A small Fortuna