Abstract
This article, written by Assistant Technology Editor Karen Bybee, contains highlights of paper OTC 19637, "Kikeh Development: Subsea-Equipment-Installation Challenges for Malaysia's First Deepwater Development," by G. Murray and D. Lowther, Technip Subsea 7 Asia Pacific, and A. Ledingham and T.J. Stensgaard, Murphy Sabah Oil Co. Ltd., originally prepared for the 2008 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 5-8 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The Kikeh development, the first deepwater project in Malaysia, is offshore eastern Malaysia in the South China Sea with a water depth of 1320 m. Kikeh is to be developed with 34 wells, and initial production was in August 2007. The full-length paper discusses the offshore-installation-vessel selection process including the effects on the decision process of using local equipment vs. mobilizing deepwater construction equipment from other deepwater basins around the world. With deepwater Sabah being a greenfield deepwater basin, a number of challenges arose in relation to equipment availability within the region and logistics to support deepwater construction operations. Introduction While these types of deepwater subsea developments have been brought on production in other deepwater basins for a number of years, particularly in West Africa and the Gulf of Mexico, the Kikeh development, as a first for Southeast Asia, brought about a number of challenges to and specific requirements for both opera tor and contractor that necessitated close cooperation in terms of sharing of installation assets across a number of contracts associated with the Kikeh development to meet the overall project schedule. Because of the nature of this type of deepwater subsea project, involving the supply and installation of flexible flowlines and risers, the engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning (EPCIC) contractor elected to use a joint-venture partnership to execute the project on its behalf. The project team was established in Perth, Western Australia, where all design engineering, procurement activities, and preparation of installation procedures were undertaken. Offshore-Vessel Selection The primary vessel-capacity requirements were crane-lift capabilities, flexible-pipe lay tensions, and overall deck-storage capacity to handle the products to be installed. To determine the installation-vessel requirements, some initial engineering was conducted to better understand maximum lift and deployment loads associated with the installation program.
Published Version
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