Plans underway to launch a 2nd FPSO

Jubilee Operator, Tullow Oil has initiated moves to procure a second Floating, Storage, Processing and Offloading (FPSO) Vessel for the country's oil production.The FPSO will serve Tullow's 3 to 4 billion dollar Enyenra project.

The oil company is set to launch a design bid in the days ahead. This involves four companies namely MODEC which constructed the current FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, BW Offshore, EMAS Offshore and SBM. JOY BUSINESS sources say the Jubilee field operator has been considering whether to pit two or three contractors against each other, with a final decision expected sometime this month.

The design contest is expected to run for up to about six months, paralleling an appraisal drilling campaign that is currently ongoing. At the end of the bidding, which may be revisited if appraisal wells throw up unexpected results, Tullow will select its preferred contractor “based on design and cost” before or during the second quarter of next year. First oil could then be achieved in early 2015 or possibly late 2014 if everything goes smoothly.

Sources say there is some resistance among the project partners to shortlist Modec for the work, even though the company supplied the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah for the Jubilee project. If Modec is therefore left by the wayside and Tullow decides on two contractors, project watchers have tipped BW and SBM as the likely pair. However, with BW believed to be in talks with Mexican state oil company Pemex about supplying two heavy oil FPSOs, the Norwegian company's priorities may be elsewhere. In that case, SBM and Emas could go head to head.