Deep Panuke offshore platform de-installed

In its half-year earnings report, Dutch FPSO operator SBM Offshore stated that the Deep Panuke mobile offshore production platform (MOPU) has been de-installed from its namesake gas field offshore Canada.

SBM Offshore said that the jack-up production platform was delivered to the Deep Panuke field back in 2011 to at the time operator Encana.

Natural gas from the field, located offshore about 250 kilometres southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, around 47 kilometres west of Sable Island in 44 meters of water, was processed offshore and transported via a subsea pipeline to shore near Goldboro, Nova Scotia.

It is worth noting that production from Deep Panuke permanently stopped on in May 2018, and the decommissioning activities are now underway. The platform will eventually be recycled.

“The Deep Panuke platform was safely de-installed from the offshore field in July 2020. During the next phase of the project, the platform will be prepared for transport to a recycling yard. The yard selection is planned for the second half of this year“, SBM Offshore stated in the 1H earnings report.

The Dutch offshore FPSO provider added that the demobilization of the unit would not affect the contractually agreed amount and timing of the financial considerations to be received by the company as per the initial charter contract.

This includes the option for the client to continue payments until the end of the initial charter period or to elect for early lump-sum payment.

According to info from SBM, the charter period for the Deep Panuke MOPU is until November 2021.

The company added that it would recognize the remaining revenue in the second half-year of 2020 ($122 million), which also includes the portion of the financial consideration to be received in 2021 in case no early lump sum payment is made ($79 million).