French firm delivers flowlines and risers for King’s Quay FPS

France-headquartered Vallourec has delivered flowlines and steel catenary risers (SCRs) for the King’s Quay floating production unit (FPU) in the Gulf of Mexico, as part of an agreement with Subsea 7.

Vallourec’s scope included the delivery of 60 kilometers of 6” and 16” flowlines and SCRs for the tie-back of seven subsea wells to the King’s Quay semi-submersible.

According to the company, the project required heavy wall pipes, with wall thickness over 25mm, and stringent pipe-end tolerances installed by the reel-lay method in water depths reaching over 1,000 meters.

Manufacturing of the heavy-wall pipes was carried out by Vallourec’s two production hubs in Brazil and Germany, using, as the French firm says, end-truing solutions in order to meet stringent pipe-end tolerances.

Vallourec also said its project team proposed its Smartengo Pipe Navigator solution which centralizes pipeline data to improve asset management and operational efficiency.

Subsea 7 won a contract with the operator Murphy Exploration and Production Company to deliver subsea installation services for the King’s Quay semi-submersible back in March 2020.

The floating production system (FPS) project was initiated by LLOG in 2018 as part of its plan to develop mid-size oil and gas discoveries in the Green Canyon area. However, Murphy Oil acquired LLOG’s Gulf of Mexico oil and gas assets as well as the King’s Quay FPS project in June 2019.

Murphy Exploration & Production Company – USA operates the FPS and associated export lateral pipelines, which are owned 50% by an affiliate of Third Coast Infrastructure and 50% by entities managed by Ridgewood Energy Corporation, including ILX Holdings III, LLC.

King’s Quay FPS is designed to process 80 thousand barrels of oil per day and 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and will handle production from the Khaleesi, Mormont and Samurai fields within the Green Canyon area.

Murphy Oil achieved the first oil from the fields in April as production began flowing through the King’s Quay FPS.