Tullow Oil is pushing back the start up of production at its Jubilee field offshore Ghana by an additional two weeks, after finding more damage to the Kwame Nkrumah floating production and storage offloading (FPSO) unit.
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Image of the Kwame Nkrumah, from Tullow. |
The company revealed that following a technical investigation of the FPSO’s turret bearing, it was found that the bearing had sustained enough damage to no longer be able to rotate as originally designed.
“Oil production and gas export can continue but under revised operating and off-take procedures. A root cause analysis is ongoing and a project team is assessing which long-term remediation option is most appropriate. Initial feasibility studies by the team have confirmed that the bearing issue can be fully resolved,” Tullow said.
Tullow has place the Kwame Nkrumah on "heading control" through the use of tugs to minimize the vessel’s movement around the bearing. The company is also undertaking new operating procedure that include the use of a dynamically-positioned shuttle tanker with the capacity of 250,000 bbl, and a storage tanker with a capacity of 1 MMbbl, to assure safe production and off-take operations.
The company is estimating that production from the FPSO will restart in approximately two weeks, and will also take time to ramp-up. Tullow’s production guidance will be re-issued once the new operating arrangements have stabilized, the company confirmed.
“We are focused on resolving this issue with the bearing on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah in a timely and safe manner. We have appointed a highly experienced project team to work on a permanent solution while our operations team continues to ensure we have in place safe and sustainable arrangements for production from the field,” Paul McDade, Tullow COO said. “Given the ability to continue production and because we have the appropriate insurance policies in place, we do not expect that this issue will have a material impact on our revenue.”
Tullow first experienced issues with the FPSO’s bearing in mid-February, ahead of planned maintenance that was set to start on 20 March.
Earlier this month, the company had anticipated to start up production this weekend.
Tullow is the operator of the field with 35.48% interest. Partners include Kosmos (24.08%), Anadarko (24.08%), GNPC (13.64%) and Petro SA with (2.73%).
Read more:
Tullow to start Jubliee production this week
Tullow in Jubilee force majeure
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