Jubilee Project Overview

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Abstract The Jubilee Project was a very ambitious challenge for the first significantdevelopment ever offshore Ghana. The Joint Venture used a split operatorship toexecute a world-class deepwater project in an area with no existinginfrastructure, in less than 3 years from the start of concept selection. Thispaper will highlight the approach used to manage the Jubilee risks and projectexecution, emphasizing the keys to success and lessons for this fast-trackedproject. Kosmos Energy was appointed Technical Operator for the project withresponsibility to assemble and lead the Integrated Project Team (IPT) inplanning and executing the project. Tullow Oil was appointed the Unit Operator(UO) with the responsibility to drill and complete wells, build the in-countryinfrastructure and organization for production operations, and to subsequentlyoperate and manage the field in the future. Anadarko, a non-operating partner, seconded a significant number of experienced key project personnel to the IPT, enabling the IPT to fully leverage the capabilities of the majorpartners. Jubilee first oil occurred on 28 November, 2010 and the field continued to rampup production and injection as wells were completed into 4Q 2011. Despiteseveral significant technical and commercial hurdles, the project achievedexcellent HSE, schedule, and cost performance. The IPT continued to support theUO's production operations post-first oil, and the final commissioning of gascompression/injection systems was achieved late 2Q, 2011. While there have beenthe normal challenges with shaking down a large and complex production system, overall uptime performance has been very good at >95% in the first year ofproduction. Jubilee's unique circumstances justified a very aggressiveappraisal development strategy and dictated an unconventional approach toorganizing and managing the project, which ultimately was highlysuccessful. Introduction The Jubilee Field was discovered in June 2007 in the Gulf of Guinea, approximately 60 km offshore Western Ghana. It is a very large, light, sweetoil accumulation in 1200–1500m of water. The Jubilee Partners, along with GhanaNational Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) decided in January 2008 to develop thefield using a phased approach, after just one appraisal well. Kosmos Energy wasappointed Technical Operator to lead an Integrated Project Team (IPT) inexecuting the development project and Tullow Oil (Ghana) was appointed UnitOperator to execute in-country activities, deliver wells, and operate andmanage the field in the future. A third major partner, Anadarko, providednumerous key project personnel to the IPT. The IPT developed a plan to targetjust under 300 million barrels in Phase 1 with a 17-well subsea well system and120,000 bopd FPSO. Phase 1 was approved by Partners in August 2008, and FirstOil was achieved in November 2010, within the aggressive goal set by GNPC andthe Jubilee Partners.