Injecting More Local Content Into The TEN Project: An Overview

Ghana Is Said To Be One Of The Fastest Growing Economies Due To Its Emerging Oil & Gas Industry

THE production of first oil from Tullow Oil Plc's Jubilee Field in late 2010 marked Ghana's emergence as a new player in Africa's energy industry.

The Jubilee Field which was discovered in 2007 at the time Ghana was marking its 50th anniversary has already begun providing the power to help speed up the country's development.

It is anticipated that the coming onboard of the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) Project will provide further impetus to this process, and so help improve the living standards of Ghanaians irrespective of their geographical locations.

The delivery of further hydrocarbons will also help increase government revenues and create more direct and indirect jobs in the industry.

Tullow Oil Plc, Africa's leading independent oil and gas exploration and production company, with over 50 licences in 15 African countries says it will use the experience accumulated from the Jubilee Field to bring the TEN Project into operation as swiftly and as economically as possible.

Those lessons will guide the safe and reliable production of the TEN fields throughout its lifespan, according to senior officials of the company.

THE TEN PROJECT
Tullow Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of the UK-based Tullow Oil Plc, on behalf of the Government of Ghana and its partners-– Kosmos Energy, Anadarko Petroleum, Petro SA and the state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), is leading and operating the development of the TEN fields in the Deepwater Tano block, about 60 kilometres offshore Ghana.

The TEN fields lie within an area of more than 450 square kilometres, about 20 km west of the Jubilee Field which produces about 110,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd). The TEN's reservoirs also lie in water depths ranging from between 1000 metres and 2,000 metres.

DISCOVERIES
The first discovery was made by the Eirik Raude drill rig in march 2009. Drilling in Turonian turbidite sands, in water depths of more than 1,100 metres, the team discovered a gas condensate reservoir, named Tweneboa 1.

The next find at Tweneboa was made in January 2010, 6 kilometres to the southeast and again in Turonian aged sands. In more than 1,300 metres of water the Atwood Hunter rig discovered an oil reservoir and two separate gas condensate reservoirs.

In December of the same year, the Deepwater Millennium discovered two more condensate pools.

The first find at the Enyenra field was made by the Sedco 702 in July 2010. Working in more than 1,400 metres of water, the rig drilled the well, Owo-1, to a total depth of 3,890m.

In two zones of stacked Turonian aged sands it discovered good quality light oil, between 33 and 36 degrees API. When the team drilled a sidetrack well, owo-1ST, to a total depth of just under 4,000 metres, they discovered an extension of the same light oil reservoir and two separate gas condensate reservoirs.

In the last two months of 2010, working in 1,600 metres of water 6 kilometres southeast of Tweneboa 2, the Deepwater Millennium discovered the Ntomme field, which holds deposits of gas-condensate.

PATH TO TEN PROJECT'S FIRST OIL
The TEN Development Plan (PoD) was submitted to the Ghanaian government in late 2012, following the conclusion of an extensive subsea front-end engineering design (FEED) and Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) competition. The FPSO is a vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the processing of hydrocarbons and for storage of crude oil.

On 29th May, 2013, the government formally approved the TEN DoP. This singular effort paved the way for Tullow and its partners to proceed with the development. To this end, contracts were tendered for the specialist equipment required for the development.

During these contract awards, several local Ghanaian companies were identified as capable subcontractors. By late 2013, all the major contracts had been awarded; the FPSO donor hull had been procured and its readiness for conversion started. At the same time, preparations had begun in Ghana to build capacity among local suppliers to provide fabrications services, through hiring and training campaigns.

The development of the TEN Project would require the drilling and completion of up to 24 development wells which will be connected through subsea infrastructure to a FPSO vessel, moored in approximately 1,5000 metres of water. The overall cost of the development is estimated to be $4.9 billion, excluding FPSO lease costs, according to Tullow 2013 Annual Report and Accounts.

In October 2013, the Centennial Jewel trading tanker arrived in the Jurong Shipyard in Singapore, where it has begun its conversion into TEN FPSO.

The appraisal of the TEN fields was completed last year with the drilling of the Enyenra-6A well. Development drilling commenced in 2014 with the drilling of the Ntomme-4 and Enyenra -01 water injection wells.

Following approval of the DoP, Tullow sought the consent from the Ghanaian government to farm-down its interest in the TEN project whilst remaining operator. The farm-down process is continuing in parallel to the development project. Gross capital expenditure spend for 2014 on the TEN project is expected to be about $1.2 billion.

The project is on target to deliver first oil in mid-2016 which will be followed by a steady ramp up to an expected FPSO gross production capacity of 80,000 bopd.

PROGRESS OF SECOND FPSO
The second FPSO with the latest state-of-the-art equipment was named after the late Professor John Evans Atta Mills.

FPSO J.E.A. Mills, which is currently under construction in Singapore is over 30 per cent complete, and would be delivered in Ghana in December next year. Besides producing 80,000 bopd, the FPSO Mills when completed will produce an additional 180 million cubic metres of gas and 65,000 barrels of water for production activities. It has a storage capacity of 1.7 million barrels.

The first FPSO, which was named after Ghana's first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, was delivered in Ghana in 2010 and is currently producing an average of 110,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

The Ghana's Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, who recently named the FPSO after Prof. Mills after he unveiled the deck and pipe rack stools of the new vessel built by two Ghanaian firms in Singapore acknowledged the roles played by both former and the current president of Ghana.

He said Dr Nkrumah laid the foundation, while petroleum laws and data came to fruition under President J. J. Rawlings reign, while former President J. A. Kufuor and late Prof. Mills saw the discovery and actual production of oil respectively.

Touring the FPSO Mills later, Mr Armah-Kofi Buah was assured by the managers of Jurong Shipyard Ltd, the company which MODEC contracted to build the vessel that they were on schedule to complete the vessel in December, 2015, while commercial oil production will in August 2016.

The Executive Director of Jurong Shipyard, Wan Zijian told the minister and his high-profile dignitaries including the General Manager of Tullow Oil Ghana, Charles Darko, that timely delivery of service was the hallmark of Jurong Shipyard which they do not intend to destroy with the construction of their company's twenty-fourth FPSO Unit.

He noted that the importance of the vessel and the TEN Project to Ghana's economy and growing oil and gas sector would further speed up the growth of the Ghanaian economy.

On his part, Armah-Kofi Buah expressed his satisfaction with progress of work on the vessel and pledged government's continuous support and collaboration with Tullow Oil Ghana to ensure successful and timely completion of the vessel.

LOCAL CONTENT
He also commended the two Ghanaian companies- Seaweld Engineering Ltd and Orsam Ghana Ltd in Takoradi and Tema respectively for their critical roles in building the country's second FPSO, saying it is in line with government's Local Content Policy and urged management of Jurong Shipyard to continue to work with government to build capacity of indigenous companies to enable them play active role in the oil and gas sector.

The two Ghanaian companies were contracted to build decks for the foundation of the top structure of the FPSO Unit and Pipe Rack Stools for grasping the vessel to the seabed which according to Jurong Shipyard has been fabricated perfectly with international standards.

The General Manager of Tullow Oil Ghana , Charles Darko, said the completion of the FPSO would be a vital milestone in the country's oil and gas sector, emphasising that apart from the projected 80,000 barrels of crude oil it will produce, a huge amount of gas will also be produced to fuel plants to curb issues associated with electricity generation in the country.

He used the occasion to admonish Ghanaian companies in the oil and gas sector to emulate the shining examples of Seaweld Engineering Ltd and Orsam Ghana Ltd to boost their credibility in the international oil and gas sector for more opportunities.

As part of the development of Ghana's second major oil field, TEN, four employees of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) have joined Tullow Oil plc on secondment.

The four secondees – George Asigbi, Abdul-Mumin Iddris, Kwasi Boadi and Uzziel Tetteh are be based in Tullow Oil's London headquarters, helping to manage subsurface aspects of the development of the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) fields which lie sixty kilometres off the coast of the Western Region of Ghana.

They are the first secondees to start the programme and will be joined by more GNPC colleagues later this year. The two year duration of their assignments means they will be with Tullow Oil all the way through to First Oil, which is scheduled for mid-2016.

The secondment programme is part of the skills and knowledge transfer element outlined in the TEN Development Plan, which was approved by the Government of Ghana in May 2013. The TEN Project development is being packaged to ensure that Ghana and Ghanaians benefit from the oil development.

TEN Project Director Terry Hughes commented:
“It has been my great pleasure to welcome our first four GNPC secondees to Tullow in London. I believe these secondments are mutually beneficial to both Tullow and GNPC; we are getting bright people with experience in Ghana's oil industry and the secondees will gain knowledge of Tullow's world class tools and methodologies which they will take back to Ghana. Ghana is near the beginning of its oil lifecycle, so skills and knowledge transfer is vital. Who knows: in the not too distant future, I hope we will see people from other countries coming to Ghana to learn about the oil industry.”

Drilling Cost Engineer Uzziel Tetteh, who holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, commented: “Moving from a relatively different background with no experience in Project Controls, on this secondment I'm keen to learn how costs are controlled and managed on a major project. I also aim to get a good understanding and overview of other areas such as planning and risk management. The intention is to be able to plan and manage GNPC's own projects from start to finish with little or no supervision.”

Production Technologist Abdul-Mumin Iddris, whose role at GNPC included production monitoring for the Jubilee Field, Ghana's first major oil project also operated by Tullow Oil, commented: “My assignment to the TEN Project will involve well completion design, planning and execution as well as production system modelling and flow rate allocation. At the end of this programme, I'll be able to apply Integrated Production Modelling (IPM) using the specialist software available here. I also hope to gain an understanding of the fundamentals of well completion and to build competency in pay-zone and well bore architecture. I'm looking forward to a productive and memorable time with the team.”

Geophysicist Kwasi Boadi, who has worked with GNPC since 2007, commented: “At the end of my secondment I will have gained invaluable experience in creating velocity models, learnt different approaches to creating time-depth conversion in a deepwater turbidite environment and become proficient in reservoir internal architectural interpretation. The skills I gain will be highly transferable to my work when I return to Ghana.”

Reservoir Engineer George Asigbi, who holds a degree in Geological Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and a Master of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, commented: “At the end of my secondment, I hope to develop competence in all software relevant to my career as a reservoir engineer, learn to confidently build and work on dynamic reservoir models and also be able to comfortably perform well test analyses.''

These are all part of the proactive efforts by the Jubilee partners to ensure that they have significant local involvement in the preparation and development of the TEN fields.