All in the family

Many companies often try to replicate successful prior projects and one such company that has managed to do so is Houston-based independent Anadarko Petroleum.

The Lucius spar. Anadarko Petroleum kept the Heidelberg design 87% identical to Lucius’. Images from Anadarko Petroleum.

The company opted for a “design one, build two” strategy when it came to developing the Lucius and Heidelberg fields in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (OE: August 2015), choosing to use a standalone spar for each. Lucius came online first, in January 2015, and Heidelberg followed, just last month (january 2016) – three months earlier than expected.

The Lucius field is about 275mi southeast of Galveston, Texas, and includes portions of Keathley Canyon blocks 874, 875, 918 and 919 in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, in about 7000ft water depth. The 110ft-diameter spar was designed for 80,000 bo/d and 450 MMcf/d of natural gas. Reserves will be produced through six initial wet tree wells.

Heidelberg is in Green Canyon 859, some 390mi off Texas, and consists of six production wells, one standalone truss spar, two drill centers, dual looped 8in flowlines, and 16in oil and gas export lines. The 80,000 bo/d, 80 MMcf/d-capacity Heidelberg spar is able to operate in water 5300ft deep. It has a maximum topsides operating weight of 16,000-ton, and a hull weight of 23,000-ton. The spar is 605ft-long with a 110ft-diameter.

According to Anadarko, the company was able to keep the Heidelberg design 87% identical to Lucius. And Anadarko kept much of the same processes in place. Heidelberg’s topsides, like Lucius, were constructed at the Kiewit yard in Ingleside, Texas. The pair’s hulls were constructed by Technip in Pori, Finland. To reach Texas, the Heidelberg spar sailed 7300nm over 27 days from September to October 2014 on Dockwise’s Mighty Servant I. The same journey its sister spar, Lucius, made in 2013.

Anadarko operates Lucius with 23.8% interest. Its partners are Freeport-McMoran (25.1%), ExxonMobil (23.3%), Petrobras (11.5%), Eni (8.5%), and Inpex (7.75%). Anadarko operates Heidelberg with 31.5% interest. Its partners on that project include Cobalt (9.375%), Eni (12.5%), ExxonMobil (9.375%), Freeport McMoRan (12.5%), Marubeni (12.75%), and Statoil (12%).