Aoka Mizu FPSO hook-up: Third time’s the charm for Hurricane Energy

After previous failed attempts UK’s Hurricane Energy has successfully hooked-up the Aoka Mizu FPSO to the turret mooring system buoy at the Lancaster field located in the West of Shetland area.

“The Aoka Mizu FPSO arrived at the Lancaster field on 17 March 2019 and successfully hooked-up to the turret mooring system buoy on the morning of 19 March 2019. The vessel is now on station and securely moored,” Hurricane Energy said on Tuesday.

To remind, the company had in January and February suffered setbacks in its efforts to hook-up the Aoka Mizu FPSO to a buoy.

During hook-up operations of the FPSO Aoka Mizu back in January, the rope being used to pull in the buoy became snagged and preventing the hook-up, and Hurricane then, due to bad weather, had to move the FPSO back to the Cromarty Firth to complete remediation work on the buoy pull-in system and prepare for the next opportunity to pull in the buoy.

Then in February, during the second hook-up attempt immediately prior to engaging the latches in the turret to lock the buoy into position, the pull-in rope failed, and the FPSO had to go back to Cromarty Firth to await delivery of a new pull-in rope.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hurricane said: “Work to achieve first oil continues, following which a further announcement will be made. After first oil, Hurricane anticipates a gradual ramp-up of production towards its planned average plateau rate of 17,000 bopd, net of operating efficiency.”

Hurricane plans a phased development of the Lancaster field. The first phase of the development is an EPS, using two wells tied back to the Aoka Mizu FPSO. First oil is scheduled for the first half of 2019.

Offshore Energy Today Staff