FPF-1 reaches Ithaca’s Stella field

Following years of delays, the FPF-1, a production facility to be used to produce oil from Ithaca Energy’s Stella field in the UK North Sea, has reached its offshore destination

The info on the offshore unit’s arrival to the UK North Sea, has been shared by Petrofac, the company in charge of modifications on the FPF-1.

To remind, the FPF-1 floating production platform sailed away from Poland to the Stella field on August 5. The production platform sailed away after it completed the final marine system trials offshore Gdansk.

The FPF-1 completed the required inclination test in July. The unit was moved from the Remontowa shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, where the modifications program on the platform was being done by Petrofac, to a deep water location offshore Gdansk for its final marine system trials.

While no exact date of arrival was given, the platform reached Stella sometime in the past two weeks. Namely, Petrofac said on Tuesday that the FPF-1 reached its destination while in a separate announcement from August 15 Ithaca said that the ‘vessel was approaching Stella field location.’

The Ithaca-operated Greater Stella Area is located in the heart of the Central Graben area of the Central North Sea, on the UK Continental Shelf. The Greater Stella Area licenses contain the Stella and Harrier fields, approved for development in April 2012.

The development is centered on the drilling of subsea wells tied back to the FPF-1 floating production unit, with the onward transportation of processed hydrocarbons to nearby existing oil and gas export infrastructure.

The FPF-1 will be moored on location using twelve pre-installed anchor chains. The dynamic risers and umbilicals that connect the subsea infrastructure to the vessel will then be installed.

First hydrocarbons from the Stella field are expected in November 2016.