Malaysia-based Bumi Armada Berhad awarded ABB a contract to supply electrical and automation systems for a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for a recently discovered oilfield off the coast of Angola.
Bumi is reconfiguring the former Armada Ali supertanker, now named the Armada Olombendo FPSO, which has a storage capacity of 1.8 MMbbl. Eni is chartering the vessel.
The Armada Olombendo will be positioned over the Cabaça North and Cabaça Southeast fields, about 350km northeast of Luanda, and producing up to 80,000 b/d by the end of 2016. With fields so far offshore and 500m below the ocean’s surface, the vessel will control the entire extraction process, storing oil and gas until they can be offloaded to shuttle tankers. Eni is the concessionaire of the Cabaça fields, which were discovered in 2009. They’re estimated to have a capacity of some 230 MMbbl.
To enable and monitor safe and reliable operations, ABB will deliver complete e-house solutions - which house medium voltage and low voltage switchgear - and systems for integrated electrical distribution, control, safety and power management, including ABB’s 800xA distributed control system.
ABB’s systems will distribute and manage power necessary to inject 120,000 b/d of water into the reservoir and to compress up to 120,000 MMcf of natural gas.
“FPSO vessels offer a competitive solution for the development of deep water and remote oil and gas fields, such as those in the West of Africa. We are pleased to contribute to Bumi Armada Berhad’s latest FPSO project to ensure safe and reliable floating production,” said Stein Guldbrandsoy, ABB global market segment manager for floating production units.
This order marks the fourth collaboration between ABB and Bumi Armada. Past projects include a modular e-house package for FPSO vessels operating off India’s west coast, the Kraken oil field in the North Sea and a complete automation package for an FPSO vessel operating in the Balnaves oil field off western Australia.
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