LNG

Sembcorp Marine, the Singapore-headquartered global offshore, marine and energy platforms providers, is continuing to build its Brazilian shipyard business by completing its second floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for Brazil’s oil and natural gas rich offshore Santos Basin.

Semmarine's yard is called the Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz (EJA) facility and has been located since 2014 in the Espirito Santo state of southeast Brazil in the municipality of Aracruz.

The yard employs up to 4,500 workers during peak periods of production and in addition to tapping into the revived Brazilian offshore oil and gas industry, the EJA yard is offering field developments services for the in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and West African regions.

The Sembmarine-owned yards “Petrobras P-71” FPSO is the second completed for the Tupi B.V. joint venture, majority-owned by state energy company Petróleo Brasileiro, known as Petrobras.

“The FPSO vessel, P-71, has just sailed away from EJA’s shipyard and will be deployed to the ultra-deepwater Itapu field,” said EJA.

Former LNG plan

Atapu is an oil and natural gas field with a shared deposit, located at a water depth of over 2,000 metres in the Santos Basin pre-salt.

Analysts note that for several years BG Group of the UK had spoken about an LNG production project in Brazil’s Santos Basin before being taken over by Shell in 2016. However, EJA’s the new FPSO is oil focused.

“When launched into operation, P-71 will produce up to 150,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD). Measuring 316 metres in length and 54 metres in width, ‘P-71’ has a 1.6-million-barrel storage capacity and can accommodate 166 persons,” explained EJA.

EJA’s “P-71” work scope included fabricating six modules, pipe-racks and a flare, and integrating them on the vessel along with other modules and items supplied by the customer.

The yard said it also executed modification works on the FPSO’s topsides and hull to meet Itapu field requirements.

Premier facility

“Despite pandemic-related challenges which affected the project over a period of 20 months, EJA successfully delivered the P-71 FPSO on schedule, cementing its status as a premier facility in Brazil capable of taking on full engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning work for large-scale offshore projects,” said EJA President Thangavelu Guhan.

“We thank Petrobras and its partners for choosing to work with us on the ‘P-68’ and ‘P-71’ FPSO projects. We would also like to recognise our employees, vendors and community leaders whose assistance is important to our continued success,” stated Guhan.

EJA Chairman William Goh said that as a Brazilian shipyard with international expertise and advanced capabilities, the company had also become a major commercial entity and part of the social and economic fabric of Espirito Santo state and its local communities.

“We are committed to growing our business here by providing world-class engineering solutions for the offshore renewables, oil & gas and other clean energy sectors,” declared Goh.

Kosmos Energy, the US-based shareholder in the floating liquefied natural gas joint venture offshore the West African nations of Mauritania and Senegal, has adjusted its shareholdings for the pre-emption rights of Tullow Oil plc of the UK after spending $550 million to acquire shareholdings in oil and gas fields offshore Ghana from Occidental Petroleum of the US.

Kosmos, a specialist in Atlantic Margin exploration and production and based in Dallas, Texas, had agreed in October 2021 to acquire an additional 18 percent interest in the Jubilee field and an additional 11 percent stake in the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) oil and gas fields offshore of Ghana.

Ghana National Petroleum Corp. (GNPC) was also acquiring stakes in the same fields from Occidental for $200M and will be the main partner of Kosmos.

The new Kosmos focus on Ghana comes as FLNG projects being developed with UK major BP offshore Mauritania and Senegal continue to progress, centred on the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim gas fields.

The first Mauritania-Senegal FLNG production facility is scheduled to have first gas in early 2023.

Kosmos explained that in Ghana after execution of definitive transaction documentation and receipt of required government approvals, Kosmos and Tullow have now concluded their pre-emption transaction.

For another shareholder PetroSA of South Africa, the process is ongoing and remained subject to execution of definitive agreements and required government approvals.

Reductions

Following completion of the pre-emption by both Tullow and PetroSA, the ultimate interest of Kosmos will be reduced in Jubilee by 3.8 percent to 38.3 percent.

Under the changes Kosmos would retain 80 percent of the original acquired interest.

The ultimate Kosmos interest in the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme oil and gas fields offshore of Ghana will be reduced by 8.3 percent to 19.8 percent with Kosmos retaining 25 percent of the original acquired interest.

The consideration paid to Kosmos from Tullow after taking into account closing adjustments was around $118 million in the first quarter.

An additional $10M is expected to be payable on completion of the PetroSA pre-emption process and Kosmos plans to accelerate debt reduction with the proceeds.

The net 2022 production impact of the pre-emption exercise for Kosmos is a reduction of about 4,000 barrels of oil per day and is expected to result in one less Ghana cargo lifting this year and a reduction in 2022 capital expenditure of around $30M.

LNG progress

Kosmos said in its March 2022 earnings that the Mauritania-Senegal FLNG venture was 70 percent completed.

Both BP and Kosmos said the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim LNG project had made steady progress in 2021.

All eight process modules have now been lifted onto the deck of the Floating Production Storage Offloading unit and mechanical completion of the process sub-systems was underway,

Construction was also completed of the 21st and final caisson of the breakwater and the subsea pipe-laying vessel completed its nautical trials in preparation for the offshore installation campaign in the second quarter of 2022.

Kosmos said that the FLNG hull had all four mixed-refrigerant compressors lifted onboard and pipe-rack installation operations had commenced.

Kosmos Energy, the US-based shareholder in the floating liquefied natural gas joint venture offshore the West African nations of Mauritania and Senegal, posted higher fourth-quarter net profits and reported the FLNG venture 70 percent completed amid asset acquisitions in Ghana.

Kosmos Energy, the US shareholder in the floating LNG projects offshore the West African nations of Mauritania and Senegal, is aiming for the first phase of the planned floating LNG project to be 80 percent completed by the end of 2021.

Australian LNG operator Woodside Petroleum has completed its acquisition of a stake valued at more than US$600 million from UK-listed Cairn Energy, giving it overall control of the oil development in Senegal offshore West Africa, which has emerged as a major Atlantic Margin oil and gas province amid major discoveries.

Modec Inc, the Japanese builder of offshore floating production and storage platforms, has been awarded a contract by Woodside Energy to operate an oil and gas platform for the Western Australian LNG project stakeholder’s most import venture outside of Australia.