Shell awards Whale commissioning deal to Gate Energy

Energy supermajor Shell has selected Gate Energy as the provider of facility commissioning services for the Whale development in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Gate Energy said on Monday that the contract comes at the back of the current execution scope for the provision of commissioning services for Shell’s Vito facility that is currently underway. The deal for Vito commissioning was awarded back in June 2018.

The company added that the associated scope includes commissioning planning, onshore commissioning execution, and offshore commissioning as well as ready-for-startup services.

Mark Myhre, president of commissioning at Gate Energy, said: “We are confident that Gate’s efforts on the Vito project to date and our ability to gain efficiencies through the application of lessons learned will be implemented on Whale to deliver best-in-class execution support to Shell.

“This will be Gate’s second opportunity to execute commissioning of the ‘design one, build two’ project model. Whale will add to our already strong backlog of international projects as we continue to build on our global footprint“.

Grant Gibson, Gate founder and CEO, stated: “The Whale project award shows Shell’s commitment to Gate in the processes that we have developed to deliver world-class projects for our clients.

“Gate will be commissioning three of the four mega projects in the Gulf of Mexico over the next year, and with offices in multiple U.S. locations, Singapore, and South Korea, are perfectly poised to continue the growth and expansion over the next decade“.

The Whale development is owned by Shell which has a 60 per cent interest as the operator while Chevron holds the remaining 40 per cent. The field is located beneath more than 8,000 ft of water, some 200 miles southwest of Houston and is currently scheduled to begin production in 2024.

Whale will be Shell’s 12th deepwater host in the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to reach peak production of approximately 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) and currently has an estimated, recoverable resource volume of 490 million boe.

To remind, Shell made a final investment decision for Whale in late July. The development features a 99 per cent replicated hull and an 80 per cent replication of the topsides from the Vito project.

Just last week, Williams agreed to provide Shell with offshore natural gas gathering and crude oil transportation services as well as onshore natural gas processing services for the Whale development.