Wood hired to support Senegal’s first offshore oil development

UK oilfield services provider Wood has been awarded a contract by Woodside Energy for the Sangomar FPSO development, located offshore Senegal.

The floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel is specifically designed for the processing of hydrocarbons and the storage of oil before being transported to markets around the world. On completion in 2023, the FPSO for the Sangomar project will have a production capacity of approximately 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

According to Wood’s statement on Tuesday, its multidisciplinary team will implement a combined production management system (PMS) and virtual metering system (VMS) at the Sangomar FPSO control room and Woodside’s onshore offices in Senegal and Perth, leveraging Wood’s digital capabilities and Virtuoso platform.

As explained by Wood, the Virtuoso PMS and VMS will provide real-time monitoring of the production system together with decision support for complex operations and advanced surveillance for hydrate and wax management. The PMS will ensure continuity of production and minimised flaring which reduces the greenhouse gas emissions and methane intensity of Sangomar. Further, the VMS minimises the number of subsea flow meters required for the development.

As a process digital twin, Virtuoso monitors and optimises over 30 per cent of the world’s LNG systems using multiphase flow models combined with real-time data, delivering a real-time decision support system to monitor, control, optimise and plan production operations from pore to transmission systems.

The recent contract win follows on from Wood’s ongoing work with Woodside executing the flow assurance design analysis for the Sangomar FPSO Development, drawing on its experience of complex operations of the field which include hydrate and wax management, hot oil and dead oil circulation, and gas lift optimisation.

Prabu Parthasarathy, Vice President, Intelligent Operations at Wood, said: “We are delighted to be able to continue our longstanding relationship with Woodside following the award of this new contract. As one of Africa’s leading natural gas markets, boasting over 450 billion cubic meters of reserves, Senegal is aiming to establish itself as a regional gas producer and exporter.”

The Sangomar field, discovered in 2014, is located 100 kilometers south of Dakar and will be Senegal’s first offshore oil development.

Earlier this year, Bureau Technical Services joined Subsea 7 for support with quality assurance and quality control services (QA/QC) for the Sangomar development.

An FID for the project was made in January 2020 and the drilling campaign started in July 2021, using the Diamond Offshore’s Ocean BlackRhino drillship. Diamond’s Ocean BlackHawk drillship is also expected to arrive on location in mid-2022.

The first well for the Sangomar project was completed last September, with results from the well being above expectations. The first oil production is expected in the fourth quarter of 2023.