Just this week, Woodlands based oil company Anadarko shared a video showing the Heidelberg spar’s 23,000-ton vessel making the 400 mile trip over four days from construction yards in Ingleside, Texas all the way to the Green Canyon block in the Gulf of Mexico, which is about 390 miles east of Corpus Christi.
The project is built on the Anadarko philosophy of “design one, build two,” making it a twin to the earlier Lucius spar located several miles to the west in the Gulf that began production earlier in 2015. By constructing the Heidelberg replica of the Lucius spar, the company has accelerated the anticipated date of its first oil by an astounding 18 months.
Also located in the Gulf, Anadarko’s humongous Heidelberg truss spar has achieved one of its final major project milestones in the completion of its 16,000-ton topside deck. The Heidelberg spar is expected to pump anywhere up to 80,000 barrels of crude a day at its peak production.
“We’ve got essentially anywhere from six to twelve months of installation campaign,” said Deputy Project Manager Clay Thompson of Anadarko. “What you’re seeing here is a just very small portion of the overall installation. We’ve got hookup and commissioning after the top sides are on, a tremendous amount of startup activities to get it ready for our first production.”
This latest multi-billion dollar spar still has a few more months before it will begin pulling its first barrels of oil through in its 605 foot hull early next year, which is sooner than previously expected. Anadarko also expects to accelerate the oil from the first three subsea wells, with two more wells coming online later next year. This advance will allow the company and its partners to cash in on the project sooner than first thought.
Lilia Fabry is the owner of MPP Freelance, a writing and web design firm in Houston, TX.
