Technip Wins Ultra-Deepwater Installation Contract at Stones

Technip’s Deep Blue, image courtesy Technip

On May 8th, Shell announced their plans to develop the Stones field located approximately 200 miles south of New Orleans in Walker Ridge.  This 100%-owned field is the world’s deepest at approximately 2,900 meters (9,500 feet).

A critical element of any deepwater field is not just the drilling and completion of the wells, but also the installation of the complex subsea architecture that connects the wells to the production flowlines.

Paris-based contractor Technip, a firm which has successfully conducted this sort of installation work in the past, announced today the winning of the contract to conduct the engineering, procurement and installation of the subsea infrastructure at the Stones field.  The installation work will be conducted in 2H 2014 using Technip’s deepwater pipelay vessel, Deep Blue.

Once complete, this architecture will be tied in to the world’s deepest floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit, and Shell’s first FPSO in the Gulf of Mexico.

David Dickson, Technip’s Senior Vice President, North America Region, commented on the contract award, “With greater depths come greater challenges for our clients and we are delighted to help Shell push back subsea frontiers by laying the deepest gas pipeline worldwide.”

The offshore installation is expected to be performed in the second half of 2014 by the Deep Blue, Technip’s deepwater pipelay vessel.

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