ONGC to commission first ever FPSO at D1
ONGC's first ever FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) vessel will be commissioned at the D1 marginal field this month (April).
Armada Sterling was mobilised at the D1 production/water injection platform in January, a month later than the December 2012 deadline. Since January it is being hooked up to begin taking oil.
ONGC has yet to fix a date for the commissioning ceremony on board to be attended by company chairman Sudhir Vasudeva. “We're waiting only for his dates," says ONGC.
"He has a busy schedule.” Sterling has onboard storage capacity of 60,000 b/d and was hired in August 2011 for seven years for $604m, in a controversial tender allegedly tailor-made for Malaysia’s Bumi Armada, the sole valid bidder.
When commissioned, Sterling will take 17,000 b/d of D1 oil that tankers will transport to onshore facilities at Uran, north of Mumbai. D1 lies in water depths of 70 to 80 metres around 220-km west of the coastline, making it ONGC’s farthest western offshore field.
Ten oil producers and two water injectors yield 17,000 b/d. ONGC expects production to increase to 35,000 b/d within a year, increasing to 60,000 b/d by 2018 from three wellhead platforms built and installed by Essar Projects in 2010.
Seven more wells have been drilled and another seven are being drilled from these new platforms by Jindal Drilling jack-up Discovery-1 and Deepwater Drilling jack-up Dynamic Vision. ONGC should complete drilling all the wells by March next year (2014).