BP Sanctions Trinidad Platform (Update with Contract Award)

BP’s joint venture with Repsol last week announced two new gas finds totalling 2 trillion ft³ and gave the go-ahead for its Angelin offshore gas project.

Angelin will require a new platform – BPTT’s 15th offshore production facility – 60 km off the south-east coast of Trinidad in water depth of about 65 metres, BP said June 2. Drilling is due to start in Q3 2018 and first gas from the facility is expected in 1Q 2019.

Angelin will include four wells, have a production capacity of some 600mn ft³/d, and flow its gas to the Serrette platform hub via a new 21-km pipe. The Angelin field was originally discovered in 1995 and appraised in 2006.

BPTT regional president Norman Christie said that the Angelin project’s sanction was due to a new gas sales contract with the Trinidad & Tobago’s state National Gas Company: “Successful completion of these negotiations was important not only to the sanction of Angelin but will also underpin a further $5bn-$6bn in potential future investments over the next five years.” Such investments would be important to increasing gas supply not only to the local market but also to the Atlantic LNG export venture. The firm's statement did not give a project cost for the Angelin project. 

US firm McDermott said June 5 it was awarded an engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning (EPCIC) contract from BPTT for the Angelin project, including a six-slot wellhead platform and 26-inch subsea pipeline. The 900 metric ton (mt) four-legged main pile jacket and 1,200 mt four-deck topside for the Angelin project will be constructed at the Altamira, Mexico fabrication facility, it said. Contract value was not disclosed.

BPTT is 70% owned by BP and 30% by Repsol and operates in 904,000 off Trinidad’s east coast. Exports from Atlantic LNG complex declined in 2016.

BPTT's wholly-owned Savannah and Macadamia gas discoveries (Map credit: BP) 

BPTT also said June 1 it had made two significant gas discoveries with its wholly-owned Savannah and Macadamia exploration wells, unlocking “approximately 2 trillion ft³ of gas in place” to underpin new developments in these areas.

Based on the success of the Savannah well, made 80 km off southeastern Trinidad in water depth of over 500 ft, BPTT expects to develop these reservoirs via future tieback to the Juniper platform due come online mid-2017. The Macadamia discovery is expected to support a new platform after 2020. "These discoveries are the start of a rejuvenated exploration program on the Trinidad shelf,” said Christie.

Repsol said June 5 the finds represented its largest gas discovery in the last five years and the largest in Trinidad and Tobago in the last decade.

Mark Smedley