McDermott scoops Amoca field contract in Mexico

McDermott International has been awarded a contract by Eni for engineering, procurement and construction of wellhead platform one (WHP1) to be installed in the Amoca field, located approximately 18 miles (30 kilometers) offshore Dos Bocas in southeast Mexico.

McDermott said on Tuesday that the four-deck topsides will have two main decks and will weigh approximately 2,924 tons (2,653 metric tons). The four-legged jacket and piles will weigh approximately 1,785 tons (1,620 metric tons).

McDermott will perform the hookup, commissioning and startup of 12 wells. The jacket and piles are scheduled to be ready for loadout by the end of the fourth quarter 2019 while the deck is expected to be ready for loadout by the end of the second quarter 2020.

“This contract marks McDermott’s largest award to date with ENI México and it builds on our previous success in delivering ENI’s projects with the highest levels of safety, quality and cost-efficiency,” said Mark Coscio, McDermott’s Senior Vice President for North, Central and South America.

“For the Amoca Field project, we will provide word-class solutions through our engineering center in Mexico City and our fabrication facility in Altamira to perform the work.”

The engineering work is expected to begin immediately, and the contract will be reflected in McDermott’s second quarter 2019 backlog.

The Amoca WHP1 is an unmanned oil and gas production facility that includes eight producer wells and four water injection wells. WHP1 will be installed in the Gulf of Mexico, Contract Block 1 at an approximate water depth of 93 feet (28 meters). Fluids will be exported to a floating production, storage and offloading vessel.

Eni’s Offshore Area 1 development

Eni’s development plan for the discoveries of Amoca, Miztón and Tecoalli within the Offshore Area 1 located in the shallow waters of the Campeche Bay was approved by Mexico’s National Hydrocarbon Commission at the beginning of August 2018. This was achieved only 32 months after the company signed the Area 1 Production Sharing Contract (PSC), won in an international bid round, and 17 months after the drilling of the first well.

The development will be phased, initially with an early production phase with startup planned in 1H 2019, through a well head platform located on the Miztón field. Production will be sent onshore through a 10” multiphase line and then treated at an existing Pemex facility. Early production plateau will be 8,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

Eni has already installed its Miztón platform, making it the first foreign offshore oil asset installation in Mexico. Startup of the Miztón well head platform is on schedule for first half 2019.

Full field production will start in late 2020 utilizing a floating production, storage and offloading facility (FPSO) with a treatment capacity of 90,000 bopd. Two additional platforms will be installed on the Amoca field and one on the Tecoalli field.

In October 2018, Japan’s MODEC received a letter of intent for supply, charter, and operations of an FPSO vessel from Eni to be deployed in the Offshore Area 1. MODEC concluded financing for the FPSO charter project for Eni’s Area 1 block earlier in April.

Construction of the FPSO is planned to be completed in 2021, and the FPSO will be deployed for the development of the Area 1 block at water depths of about 32 meters.