BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov.7
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
“Israfil Huseynov” vessel, operated by Italian Saipem company, has resumed its work for the second stage of development of Shah Deniz gas and condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, BP Azerbaijan told Trend.
On May 8 in the evening, an explosion occurred on “Israfil Huseynov” vessel operated by Saipem for pipelaying in the Caspian Sea under the Shah Deniz 2 project.
The incident was related to maintenance operations on an item of equipment during pipe-laying activities.
"The vessel has already returned to its operation area and has started to work for the project," BP said.
Saipem confirmed the information.
The vessel resumed installation of the flowlines from the subsea well clusters to the Shah Deniz Bravo platform location.
Saipem has been involved in the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project since 2014.
In 2016 Saipem and its consortium partners Bos Shelf and Star Gulf were awarded by BP a contract for installation of subsea production systems and subsea structures, laying of fiber optic cables and production umbilicals as well as laying of 90km of pipelines under Shah Deniz 2 project.
The total value of the contract is approximately $1.5 billion (Saipem share approximately $1.3 billion), with a duration of five years plus a possible extension for a further five.
Shah Deniz Stage 2, or Full Field Development (FFD) is a giant project that will add a further 16 billion cubic meters per year (bcma) of gas production to the approximately 10 bcma produced by Shah Deniz Stage 1.
The current concept for Shah Deniz Stage 2 includes:
- two new bridge-linked offshore platforms.
- 26 gas production wells which will be drilled with 2 semi-submersible rigs.
- 500 km of subsea pipelines will link the wells with the onshore terminal.
- upgrade of the offshore construction vessels
- expansion of the Sangachal terminal to accommodate the new gas processing and compression facilities.
After achieving significant commissioning and completion milestones across the whole gas value chain at the beginning of the year, the Southern Gas Corridor official inauguration event was held at the Sangachal Terminal on 29 May. This was followed by the commencement of commercial gas deliveries to Turkey from the Shah Deniz 2 development project as planned on 30 June 2018.
On 30 July, the wing valve on the North Flank subsea well SDC-03Z was opened, marking the first production from the Shah Deniz Bravo platform. This milestone marks the very first production from a subsea well in the Caspian, a significant achievement, which has been delivered safely, below budget and ahead of schedule. The Bravo facility is now exporting gas and condensate to the onshore terminal at Sangachal.
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