New York: Royal Dutch/Shell is to go ahead with the world’s deepest offshore oil and gas production facility, pushing the boundaries of industry technology to drill almost three kilometres underwater in the Gulf of Mexico.
The project go-ahead demonstrates Shell’s confidence in pricey offshore projects despite a recent downturn in oil prices and comes a day after Exxon Mobil Corp said it would be starting on a $4bn project to develop the Julia oilfield, also in the Gulf of Mexico.
Shell’s 100 percent-owned Stones field was discovered in 2005 some 200 miles southwest of New Orleans and encompasses eight lease blocks in the Gulf of Mexico’s Lower Tertiary geologic trend — one which produced the Anglo-Dutch oil company’s Perdido development.
Perdido, at 9,365 feet below the surface, is the world’s deepest offshore well. The Stones field is deeper, at 9,500 feet.
Production during the first phase of Stones is expected to have an annual peak of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Shell said in a statement.
Shell will build a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel and subsea infrastructure - the company’s first in the Gulf of Mexico, even though such vessels are an increasingly common sight in newer oil provinces. Shell and others have traditionally used moored platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reuters
