The era of easy oil is over and the race is on to produce tomorrow's oil from new and more hostile frontier environments. The construction of the hull of one of the world's deepest oil production facilities is now complete and has started to make its 8,200 mile journey from the shipyard in Pori, Finland, to Texas, USA.

The massive steel spar structure, which is as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and weighs as much as 10,000 family cars, forms part of Shell's most ambitious deepwater offshore oil and gas development ever undertaken and will be the world's deepest spar production facility.

The hull, which is 39 meters (118 feet) in diameter and 170 meters (555 feet) tall, and weighs approximately 22,000 short tons will travel 8,200 miles to the Kiewit Offshore Services fabrication yard in Ingleside, Texas. The construction of the hull began in November 2006, requiring more than two million man hours.

Operating in the ultra-deep, the Perdido spar will float on the surface in the Gulf of Mexico in 8,000 ft of water and is capable of producing as many as 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. It will be moored by nine chain and polyester rope mooring lines, to an area of the sea bed the size of downtown Houston.

On the sea floor, 22 wells will be linked to the Perdido spar above. Oil and gas will be propelled to the surface against the extreme pressure of the deepwater by 1,500 horse-power electric pumps.

The remotest producing platform in the entire Gulf of Mexico region, Perdido will sit 220 miles from Galveston, Texas, and provide living quarters for 150 industry personnel. The helicopter landing deck will set new industry records, accommodating two long-range Sikorsky S92 helicopters simultaneously, each holding up to 24 passengers and crew.

Following its launch, the hull will travel by barge to Ingleside, Texas, where it will be engineered together with its topsides before beginning the journey to sea and its final destination in block 857 of the Alaminos Canyon.

Shell, the 35% shareholder of the Perdido Regional Development Spar, is operator on behalf of partners BP (27.5%) and Chevron (37.5%). Perdido is scheduled to begin production towards the end of the decade.
 

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