The Hindu Business Line : FPSO vessel to be operational by month-end: ONGC

After suffering technical hiccups, the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel hired by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to augment its production from the Bombay High North (BHN) field is expected to be operational by the month-end. The FPSO was initially expected to begin operations by May-end, but developed snags.

A senior ONGC executive told Business Line that the company now expects it to be operational by October-end or early-November. Asked about the loss of production suffered by the company due to this delay, the executive said it would be very marginal, as the company has worked out other mechanism to divert the production.

With the deployment of FPSO, it was envisaged that production from the wells/platforms could be put back on production at the shortest possible time, the executive said. Subsequent to the BHN accident in July 2005, several wells and platforms connected to BHN were closed and some were alternatively diverted to other platform wherever alternative pipelines were available for immediate evacuation. The deployment of FPSO had emerged as one of the options to produce from well platforms of the BHN area.

The Delhi-based Discovery Enterprises has provided the FPSO to ONGC, sources said, adding that the company would be spending around $76,000 per day for hiring the vessel. Till such time that the new BHN platform is commissioned, the FPSO will be essentially required in the BHN field for oil production, sources added.

Crash in production

The accident had led to crash in production from BH fields to 140,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) to 270,000 bopd. ONGC was able to restore the production to 197,803 bopd within a month of the accident. Currently, the output has improved to 259,000 bopd. After installing of FPSO the company expects the production from Bombay High to return to 270,000 bopd shortly and rise to 300,000 bopd within 2006-07. The FPSO would facilitate a maximum production of approximately 10,000 bopd.

On the functioning of such a vessel, sources said that oil from wells in the seabed is drawn through pipes to the FPSO and is stored in the tanks provided in its hull after some processing on its deck. The produced crude oil is then offloaded onto shuttle tankers periodically. These vessels are typically suitable for middle and small-scale oil fields located far away from landfall. The BHN platform was connected to a sub-sea network of about 20 oil wells as well as two other platforms.

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