The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) is pleased to announce that the drilling modules and living quarters for the Deep Water Gunashli (DWG) –Phase 3 drilling, utilities and quarters (DUQ) platform have already arrived in Baku from the Netherlands and Sweden, where they were built.
Mercon Steel Structures, AIOC’s drilling modules construction contractor, commenced fabrication of the modules in the Netherlands at the end of 2004 following the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Phase 3 project sanction. Construction works were completed in March 2006 and the modules were loaded onto barges and transported to Caspian via the Russian canal route.
The total dry weight of these modules including the drilling derrick is approximately 3,700 tonnes. The drilling modules for the DUQ platform comprise three main components - the drilling support module, the drilling equipment set and the drilling derrick. The modules are designed to provide drilling from 48 slots during the operational life of the DUQ platform.
The living quarters including the helideck, for the DUQ platform were fabricated in Sweden by Pharmadule Emtunga AB, AIOC’s contractor for engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of platform living quarters. They were delivered to Baku on three transportation barges.
The living quarters for the DUQ platform will be assembled of a total of 48 mini modules. The modules are designed to provide a three hundred-bed accommodation facility during the offshore hook-up phase reverting to two hundred beds during the operational life of the DUQ platform.
Both drilling modules and living quarters are now in the process of offloading at the topsides yard of the Heydar Aliyev Baku Deepwater Jackets Factory. The installation of these modules onto the integrated deck will be implemented over the coming months by McDermott Caspian Contractors Inc., AIOC's contractor for fabrication of the DUQ platform topsides.
The parties to the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Production Sharing Agreement are: BP (operator - 34.1%), Chevron (10.3%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10.,0%), Statoil (8,6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.8%), Devon (5.6%), Itochu (3.9%), Amerada Hess (2.7%).
Photos available
Note to Editors:
The ACG Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), signed in September 1994, covers the 30 year development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli contract area. It is estimated that 5.4 billion barrels of oil will be recovered during the PSA period. The field is being developed in several phases: Chirag has been producing since 1997 as part of the Early Oil Project (EOP). This was followed by Azeri Project Phase 1 - Central Azeri production in early 2005. Successive phases include West Azeri, which started production in early 2006, and East Azeri, scheduled to come on stream in early 2007 as Azeri Project Phase 2, with ACG Phase 3 - Deepwater Gunashli, already under construction and expected to begin production in 2008.
Tamam Bayatly at BP’s Press Office in Baku, telephone: 994 (0) 12 599 4557