Romania: GSP Offshore bags Midia gas project work

Romanian operator Black Sea Oil & Gas (BSOG) has awarded an engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning (EPCIC) contract for all offshore and onshore facilities for the Midia gas development project off Romania to GSP Offshore.

GSP Offshore has also been awarded a development drilling contract for the Midia development.

Announcing the contract awards last Friday, November 23 BSOG said the contracts had been awarded in cooperation with its co-venture partners Petro Ventures Resources and Gas Plus International.

The company added that the execution of the contract, subject to final investment decision (FID), covered the procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning of the complete subsea gas production system over the Doina field.

A part of the deal also entails construction, installation, and commissioning of a new unmanned production platform located over the Ana field which will be built at GSP’s fabrication yard in Constanta as well as a subsea pipeline system that will link the platform to shore, the onshore pipeline, and the new gas treatment plant that will be built in Vadu village.

BSOG also said that a contract was signed for development drilling of the five production wells, one of which is a subsea well at the Doina field while the remaining four are platform wells at the Ana field. The wells will be drilled using the GSP Uranus jack-up rig.

According to the company, building the entire project infrastructure is estimated to take two years with 70% of the costs in relation to these contracting activities, which makes up the majority of the total installed project cost of $400 million, is estimated to be of Romanian content.

Mark Beacom, CEO of BSOG stated: “In line with our objective to bring this project to FID we have recently announced the signing of our transportation agreement with Transgaz and a gas sales agreement with Engie.

“We are now very pleased to announce that we have concluded this EPCIC contract and Development Drilling Contract with the largest Romanian offshore contractor for our pioneering MGD project that could provide 10% of Romania’s gas needs […].”

Gabriel Comanescu, CEO of GSP, added: “GSP entered the offshore construction business in 2009 and had gained valuable experience in similar projects in other countries. Our local and global expertise in both drilling and offshore construction, together with our assets and capabilities in Romania enables us to successfully deliver the MGD project.”

The Midia Gas Development Project comprises the Ana and Doina gas fields (320 Bcf P50 contingent resources) which were discovered in 2007 and 1995 respectively. Both are of latest Miocene to Dacian age, shallow marine sandstone reservoirs, some 120 kilometers offshore Romania, in the XV Midia Shallow area where the water depths are around 70 meters.