Chevron Engages Marine Platforms on Agbami Phase 3 Project

Chevron Nigeria Limited’s Star Deepwater Petroleum Limited has awarded Marine Platforms Limited a Brownfield deepwater construction contract to carry out subsea tieback for the Agbami field, one of Nigeria's largest deepwater developments.

By the terms of the contract, Marine platforms is tasked with the transportation, installation and pre-commissioning (TIP) of flexible flowlines, jumpers, umbilical and manifold.

For the execution of this project, Marine Platforms will be deploying the Polar Onyx, an offshore construction vessel (OCV) with 250 tonnes AHC Crane, 270 tonnes top tension Vertical Lay System (VLS) and Reel Drive System.

All engineering and project management work are being carried out in Marine Platforms Lagos office by a combination of Marine Platform engineers and its technical partner, PDI.

The Agbami Phase 3 is an eight -well drilling programme that commenced in early 2015 and is expected to start crude oil production in 2016.

The Chief Executive Officer of Marine Platforms, Mr. Taofik Adegbite, said the project was a brownfield development to increase its production, adding that the project is the first of its kind to be awarded to any indigenous company in Nigeria.

“They are drilling additional wells in Agbami field to tie back to the Agbami main FPSO (Floating Production, Storage Offloading) vessel. Projects like this ordinarily are executed by the major subsea construction companies. This is the first time an indigenous company will be venturing into this terrain to fully undertake execution end to end. Doing the engineering and project management in-house in Nigeria and going to field to manage the project,” he explained.

“Marine Platforms has recruited Nigerians to gain experience on this project. At the present time, there are 10 Nigerian subsea engineers involved and about 20 marine cadets who will be gaining experience. This is a major achievement for the Nigerian content development, especially at this time in the oil and gas industry. It further cement Chevron as a major player supporting indigenous capacity building by having confidence in Marine Platforms to be able to execute this job,” he added.

Prior to this project, Marine Platforms gained brown field construction experience alongside its technical partner, CEONA,  during the successful execution of ABO phase 3, 8 and 12 Load-out, transportation, installation and pre-commissioning of Eni Nigeria Agip Exploration’s subsea flowlines, jumpers, umbilical and manifolds in 2014.

Chevron’s Agbami field produces 250,000 barrels per day tied back to a FPSO, which is one of the largest facilities of this type ever constructed and has an overall storage capacity of 2.15MMbbl.

The field is located offshore Nigeria in the central Niger delta approximately 113 km (70 miles) south-southwest of the nearest Nigerian shoreline, and approximately 354 km (220 miles) southeast of the city of Lagos. It lies in water depths ranging from 1280 to 1650 metres (4,200 to 5,400 feet).