PHOTO: Heerema prepares Culzean jacket leg

A photo posted on social media by Danish oil company Maersk Oil shows a completed jacket leg in Heerema Fabrication Group’s (HFG) Vlissingen yard in the Netherlands being prepared for the Culzean field in the North Sea.

The leg is part of a jacket currently being constructed by Heerema for the Culzean central processing facilities (CPF). HFG recently conducted roll up activities on the CPF jacket, also in Vlissingen.

The CPF jacket is the second being produced for Culzean by HFG after the wellhead platform jacket sailed away to the North Sea in April. The wellhead jacket and the wellhead access deck were placed on location in May.

Drilling at Culzean

The first production well on Culzean was spudded by the operator Maersk Oil in September 2016 by the Maersk Highlander jack-up rig. The well is the first of six production wells to be drilled on the high pressure / high temperature (HPHT) field, with continuous drilling activity planned over the next five years. First gas is currently expected in 2019.

Maersk Oil’s Culzean development concept consists of a wellhead platform, a central processing facility platform, and separate utilities and living quarter platform with capacity for over 100 people. The platforms will be linked via two bridges approximately 100 meters in length.

It is considered as the largest hydrocarbon discovery in the UK North Sea for over a decade. Culzean is 233 kilometers east of Aberdeen and is expected to produce between 60,000 – 90,000 boepd at plateau production. The project was sanctioned in August 2015 and estimated production will last at least 13 years.

Offshore Energy Today Staff