Woodside hands out deal for Gulf of Mexico oil & gas project to Mexican firm

Australian energy giant Woodside has hired Mexico’s Eseasa Offshore for the supply of shore base facilities and services to support its oil and gas development project offshore Mexico. This Gulf of Mexico project is expected to have a carbon intensity of 11.8 kg CO2-e/boe over the life of the field. 

Thanks to this contract, which Woodside defines as a “major” one, Eseasa will provide a broad range of services out of its shore base location on the Panuco River coastline for the Trion project. The scope of work encompasses shore base infrastructure, operations planning and management for vessel mooring, load and discharge, freight and material management, and dedicated laydown and staging areas.

Stephane Drouaud, Woodside Vice President for Trion, commented: “The award of the contract is a critical milestone as we continue to progress the Trion project toward first oil in 2028. We are very pleased to partner with Eseasa Offshore as the supplier of the full range of shore base facilities and services.

“The contract award to Eseasa, a Mexican-owned and operated company, demonstrates the great capacity available in-country to support a world-class oil and gas project like Trion. It also reinforces Woodside’s commitment to investing locally and ensuring that the economic benefits of our investment in Trion are felt as broadly as possible across Mexican suppliers.”

Woodside previously delayed the final investment decision (FID) for the Trion project from 2022 until 1Q 2023, however, the FID to develop the resource was not revealed until June 2023. Come August 2023, the Australian giant received a stamp of approval from the Mexican regulator, Comision Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH), for the Trion field development plan (FDP).

The forecasted total capital expenditure for the project is $7.2 billion out of which $4.8 billion is the firm’s share including capital carry of PEMEX of approximately $460 million. Located in a water depth of 2,500 m, approximately 180 km off the Mexican coastline and 30 km south of the Mexico/U.S. maritime border, Trion was discovered in 2012 by PEMEX. 

BHP Petroleum acquired an interest in 2017, which subsequently became part of Woodside’s portfolio in 2022. The project will be developed through an FPU with an oil production capacity of 100,000 barrels per day, which will be connected to an FSO vessel with a capacity of 950,000 barrels of oil.

The Trion development will encompass 18 wells drilled in the initial phase while a total of 24 wells will be drilled over the life of the project. The gas that is not reinjected or used on the FPU will be delivered to the domestic natural gas network by a subsea gas pipeline.

The FPU will be constructed in South Korea with the first oil targeted for 2028. Woodside recently picked Gate Energy for the pre-commissioning and commissioning planning and execution of the Trion FPU project at HHI’s fabrication yard in Ulsan, South Korea.