FPSO Triton sails from Tees Offshore Base

abarrelfull wrote on 02 May 2013 09:11
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03/22/2000

Amerada Hess, on behalf of the partners, (Shell Expro Limited, Esso, Enterprise Oil Exploration Limited, Veba Oil & Gas Limited and Paladin Expro Limited), in the Triton development comprising the Bittern, Guillemot West and Guillemot North West Fields, announce that the FPSO Triton sailed from the Tees Offshore Base, Teesside at 00.40 hrs on Friday 17 March 2000. The vessel arrived at its location 140 miles east of Aberdeen at 19.00 hrs on Saturday 18 March to commence mooring and hook up.

The fields served by the FPSO Triton have estimated reserves of some 140 million barrels of oil and 250 billion cubic feet of gas. The Guillemot West/Guillemot North West Fields were discovered in the early 1980s and Bittern in 1996.

Amerada Hess is the operator of the production facilities, Shell Exploration & Production (known as Shell Expro) is the operator of the Bittern Field and of the development phase of the Guillemot West/Guillemot North West Fields, which will be operated by Veba Oil & Gas UK Limited once production has begun. First oil is expected about six weeks after the FPSO's arrival at the field and first gas will follow shortly after.

The oil will be separated and stabilised, then stored in large tanks on board the FPSO. It will then be offloaded via a flexible hose to a shuttle tanker. In addition, gas will be processed and compressed before being brought onshore to St Fergus via the Fulmar subsea gas pipeline operated by Shell Expro.

Amerada Hess awarded the contract to build the FPSO to Kvaerner Oil & Gas in August 1997. The hull was constructed as a double hulled tanker in the yards of Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea in 1998 and modified at Sembawang Shipyard, Singapore. The topsides equipment was constructed in the Port Clarence Yard on Teesside and lifted on to the hull. Fitting-out, integration and testing was carried out at Tees Offshore Base.

The turret is the core of the Triton FPSO. It is a large circular structure at the forward end of the vessel which will be anchored to the seabed by nine anchor chains. All the control umbilicals and flexible risers connected to the subsea pipelines pass through this structure. The FPSO is designed to rotate around the turret under the influence of waves, wind and currents. The 'weathervane' effect avoids straining the risers and umbilical control cables.

The Triton FPSO had been lying at its berth on Teesside waiting for good weather and Nick Fairbrother, Amerada Hess's UK Managing Director was at the quayside when the vessel left. He said "Everybody on the project is very pleased indeed, it's a great moment for us. Lots of people have spent literally 24 hours a day putting their lives into building this for the last three years."

• FPSO Triton sails from Tees Offshore Base

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