Noble Energy awarded Dutch services provider SBM Offshore a contract for the Big Bend and Dantzler fields in the Gulf of Mexico.
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| Thunder Hawk from SBM Offshore |
The two companies signed a production handling agreement for SBM Offshore to produce at the Thunder Hawk DeepDraft semi located in 6060ft of water from the two fields.
Production fees are expected to be approximately US$400 million to be delivered over the 10-year primary contract period. First oil is expected to come in 4Q 2015 at Big Bend and 1Q 2016 at Dantzler.
Noble Energy will handle the brownfield construction and upgrade the facility.
Thunder Hawk was installed in July 2009 and developed as a steel catenary riser (SCR) friendly floater solution.
SBM Offshore says the deepwater semisubmersible solution offers advantages for subsea developments, including reduced development capital, lower operating costs and an accelerated development schedule. The company went on to say that the deck and hull can be integrated quayside avoiding costly offshore lifting and system commissioning operations.
Dantzler and Big Bend are part of the Rio Grande development. SBM Offshore says the two fields will be developed via a dual pipe-in-pipe loop system.
The Dantzler field
The Dantzler field is 7mi. from the Thunder Hawk platform in 6580ft water depth in Mississippi Canyon Block 782. In late August, Noble reported the Dantzler-2 appraisal well was drilled to a total depth of 18,210ft in 6600ft of water depth and encountered 122ft net of crude oil pay in two high-quality Miocene reservoirs. Gross resources increased to 65-100MMboe. At that time, the ENSCO 8501 semisubmersible drilling rig had begun well completion operations on Dantzler-2 and was then moving to complete the Dantzler-1 discovery well.
Dantzler is planned as a two-well tie-back, using the Big Bend infrastructure.
Noble Energy operates Dantzler with a 45% interest with partners Ridgewood Energy Corp. (35%) and W&T Energy VI (20%).
The Big Bend field
The Big Bend field is 18mi. from the Thunder Hawk platform in 7200ft water depth in Mississippi Canyon Block 698. Big Bend was discovered in 2012 and will initially be a one well tieback.
Noble Energy also operates Big Bend with a 54% interest with partners W&T Energy ( 20%), Red Willow Offshore (15.4%) and Houston Energy Deepwater Ventures (10.6%).
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