As first production draws near, new FPSO sails away to India’s deepwater gas project

South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries has built and delivered a new floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the MJ deepwater project development located offshore India to partners Reliance Industries and BP ahead of the first production, which is expected in the coming months.

Samsung Heavy revealed on Wednesday that the FPSO Ruby had sailed away to the Gulf of Bengal field in eastern India.

According to the latest AIS data, the FPSO started its journey toward India on Tuesday 30 August 2022 and it is expected to reach Kakinada on 18 September.

The shipbuilder secured a nearly $1 billion worth contract to build the Ruby FPSO back in 2019. It was the first offshore project that Samsung Heavy carried out its own EPCIC without forming an external consortium.

Ruby FPSO is a large vessel that is 260 meters long and 54 meters wide, weighing 63,000 tons. It will be put into the KG-D6 Block, which is located 40-60km southeast of Kakinada in eastern India. Reliance Industries holds a 66.67 per cent operated interest in the block while BP holds the remaining 33.33 per cent.

NOV was in charge of supplying a large submerged turret production (STP) system for the FPSO under a contract awarded in July 2019.

BP CEO, Bernard Looney, also confirmed in a social media post on Thursday that the FPSO Ruby had set sail for the 5000 km journey from South Korea to Kakinada, India where it will help ramp up domestic gas production.

BP and Reliance Industries have been developing three deepwater gas developments in the KG-D6 block – the R Cluster, the Satellite Cluster, and MJ – which together are expected to produce around 30 mmscmd or 1 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas by 2023.

The R Cluster was the first of the three projects to come on stream, in December 2020, followed by the Satellite Cluster, in April 2021.

MJ is a gas condensate field and is the third field under development as part of the KG-D6 integrated development campaign. The project was sanctioned back in June 2019 and it was expected to begin production in mid-2022.

The development is in 700-1100 meters water depth, with a well depth of 4200 meters below mean sea level in a high-temperature and pressure environment. It comprises of wells connected to subsea production, with a tie-back to the FPSO to process and separate liquids, and gas which will be exported to the onshore terminal through one of the existing 24-inch trunk pipelines.

In an update in early August, Reliance revealed that Phase 1 drilling and installation of Xmas Trees for all eight wells had been completed. Phase-2 drilling and completion activity started in July 2022. The second and final installation campaign began in December 2021. All subsea structures (Manifolds), 24” rigid pipeline and Turret Mooring System (TMS) buoy, along with mooring lines, were installed.

Furthermore, geostationary and swivel modules were installed and pre-commissioning and commissioning activities started with the first production expected to start from 3Q FY 2022-23.

A more recent update from Reliance also indicates that the commissioning of the MJ field is expected by year-end, which will see KG-D6 increase its contribution from 20 per cent to nearly 30 per cent of India’s gas production. This will help meet India’s growing demand indigenously, leading to import savings of nearly $9 billion/ annum, according to a statement by Reliance Chairman, Mukesh Ambani.