Project Profile
Value: US$300 million
Location: 140 km southwest of Bioko Island, offshore Equatorial Guinea
Water Depth: up to 1,900 m
Reserves: 2.6 tcf (73.6 bcm) - Block R
Liquefaction capacity: ~2.5 million tonnes per year
Area:2,450 sq. km
Start-up Year: 2022 (Fortuna)
Block R is located in the south-eastern part of the Niger Delta complex, nearby numerous oil and gas discoveries made in the Nigerian sector, including Akpo (600MMbbl of condensate and 1.2Tcf of gas), Usan/Ukot (600MMbbl of oil and 250Bcf of gas) and Zafiro (1,200MMbbl of oil). Block R lies in water depths ranging from 1,300 to 2,600m and has a gross area of 2,681 square kilometres. The Fortuna field complex has estimated mean recoverable resources of 1.3TCF and will form the first phase of the FLNG development. This result further de-risks the Miocene turbidite play that forms all of the Block R accumulations. The total estimated mean recoverable resources of Block R, including the discoveries and adjacent de-risked volumes, are now 3.4TCF. The incremental volumes (1.2TCF from the Silenus Complex, 0.5TCF from Tonel and 0.4TCF from other smaller discoveries) will be produced in the later phases of the development as the Fortuna field comes off plateau. The next milestones for the Block R FLNG development will be (i) the agreement of gas fiscal terms and (ii) the selection of the consortium to build, own and operate the mid-stream project. The award of the upstream and midstream FEED contracts is planned in early 2015.
In May 2015, Ophir Energy has signed up Golar LNG for the Fortuna project in Equatorial Guinea. Golar is to be the midstream partner in the Fortuna project, which will use floating liquefied natural gas processing. It will build, operate and maintain the floating liquefaction and storage vessel and facilities. Golar's Gimi FLNG vessel has been earmarked for the project; this vessel has an annual average capacity of 2.2 million tonnes, with production rates of up to 400,000 million cubic feet (67,000 barrels oil equivalent) per day. With the Golar partnership secured the project will now move into the full definition phase. A mid-stream front end engineering and design (FEED) is expected to be completed by end-2015. It is anticipated that the Gimi vessel will operate at Fortuna under a 20-year charter.
Ophir Holdings & Ventures LTD, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ophir Energy, and OneLNGSM, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Golar LNG Limited and Schlumberger, have signed a binding shareholders’ agreement to establish a Joint Operating Company (JOC). (November, 2016)
Operators:
Ophir Energy: Operator with 80% Interest
GE Petrol: 20% Interest
Golar LNG: Midstream partner
Joint Operating Company (JOC):
Ophir (33.8%) and OneLNG* (66.2%) - facilitates the financing, construction, development and operation of the integrated Fortuna project and owns Ophir’s share of the Block R licence and the Gandria FLNG vessel.
*oneLNG - (Golar, Schlumberger). (November, 2016)
Contractors:
Subsea Integration Alliance (oneSubsea and Subsea 7): EPCIC contract.
Ocean Rig: Drilling rig
WorleyParsons: Agreement for provision of engineering and project management services. The scope of engineering and project management services provided by WorleyParsons and its specialist deepwater division, INTECSEA, includes overseeing the front end engineering and design scopes and tendering and evaluation of related engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning packages.
Golar LNG: Contract to build, operate and maintain the floating liquefaction and storage vessel and facilities, using Golar's Gimi FLNG vessel
McDermott Marine Construction and GE Oil & Gas UK and Subsea 7 and Aker Solutions: Upstream Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) contracts for the Fortuna FLNG Project in Block R, Equatorial Guinea to the two contractor consortia. The Upstream FEED will be a competitive process with the scope of work including subsea development design that will enable the two competing FEED consortia to submit their EPCIC (Engineer, Procure, Construct, Install & Commission) tenders at the end of FEED, from which one will be selected for FID. Key focus areas for the FEED process will be defining the number of wells required at first gas, the cost of the development and the delivery time of the long lead subsea items, such as subsea trees, that are on the critical path to first gas. The FEED process will be completed at the end of 1Q 2016, which will allow a Final Investment Decision to be made in mid-2016 with first gas expected in mid-2019. Golar LNG, will build, own and operate the FLNG vessel, the Gimi, in return for a tariff. Golar will conduct a separate FEED study for the midstream element of the project, which will commence shortly. (September 2015)
Fugro: Contract for the provision of survey services for the development of large scale assets and infrastructure offshore Equatorial Guinea. Under the contract, Fugro will deploy three of its specialist vessels Fugro Searcher, Fugro Scout and Fugro Frontier to perform autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) surveys as well as geotechnical, environmental and metocean surveys. The significant survey programme will take place at the Fortuna Project to the west of Bioko Island, where Ophir is planning a large FLNG installation and associated subsea structures. With the surveys beginning in November 2015, the offshore operations are scheduled for completion in January 2016. (December, 2015)
Keppel Shipyard Ltd: Secured a construction contract for conversion of an LNG carrier to a floating liquefaction facility (FLNG).
Sub-contractors:
Crondall Energy: contract with a consortium of Aker Solutions and Subsea 7 for the Ophir Energy Fortuna Project in West Africa. The award is to provide technical support to the competitive Upstream Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and includes all aspects of the subsea design.