OIL TO POUR — FIRST DROP NEXT MONTH (1B, NOV 15, 2010))

INSTALLATIONS between the seabed and the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platform which will lead to the commencement of gradual oil production on the Jubilee Field are about 99 per cent complete.
This makes it certain that Ghana’s first oil will be poured in the first week of next month, as installations have almost been completed, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has given the assurance.
The final installation works, including inauguration and testing, which has to do with the gradual opening of the production valves for full production, are also ongoing.
The company working on the offshore subsea installations, Technip, is confident that work on the subsea installation is within schedule.
The Engineering Manager of the GNPC, Mr F.B . Ackah, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said there would be gradual production, which would not be up to 120,000 barrels per day, after the subsea installation.
He said there was the need to ensure that the facility was not forced to produce at full capacity immediately but made to carry out gradual opening after current ongoing testing.
The Country Manager of Technip, Mr Stephanie Solé, said the installation would be ready for the commencement of production by the end of November 2010.
At the moment, the company is in the process of putting what it described as finishing touches to what it started since the arrival of the Deep Pioneer, a multi-purpose deepwater support vessel which carried out the subsea installations.
Mr Solé assured Ghanaians that after the completion of the installations, systematic production could start in a very safe manner.
Under Phase I of the Jubilee Project currently ready for production, 17 wells were drilled, out of which nine were for production, two for gas injection wells and six for water injection wells.
Since the arrival of the Deep Pioneer, there has been the installation of seven miles of umbilicals, 42 rigid jumpers (6.25 to 12.75”), 29 miles rigid flow-lines, 19 Christmas trees, 26 PLETs, 91 electrical flying leads, 24 hydraulic flying leads, as well as eight manifolds and two risers bases.
The Phase I of the Jubilee Project has more than 800 million barrels of world-class sweet crude oil and has an upside of 1.5 billion barrels, with accompanying ratio of 1,000 to 1,200 gas-to-oil ratio.