Bu Haseer Oil and Gas Field, Abu Dhabi

The Bu Haseer oil and gas field is located between Das and Zirku Islands offshore Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The field is owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), UAE’s state-owned oil company, and operated by Al Yasat Company for Petroleum Operations, a joint venture comprising ADNOC (60%) and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC, 40%).

The field is being developed in two phases, with the first phase commencing operations in 2018 and the second phase scheduled to come online in 2020.

Bu Haseer oil and gas field location

The Bu Haseer field is part of a two-concession block development comprising onshore and offshore fields located south-west of Abu Dhabi. The blocks were awarded to CNPC for exploration in 2013.

The development includes five offshore fields, namely Bu Haseer, Belbazem, Umm Al Dholou, Umm Al Salsal and Yaser, and an onshore concession area spanning 7,800km², which is approximately double the size of Dubai.

Bu Haseer is the first of the five offshore fields being developed. The offshore block development is expected to produce approximately 1.5 billion standard barrels of oil, while the onshore area is currently under exploration and development.

Bu Haseer field development details

The two development phases of the Bu Haseer field include an early production system (EPS) and the full field development (FFD) phase.

The EPS phase development was commenced at the onshore Das Island in 2016, enabling CNPC to transport approximately 50,000 barrels of crude oil from Das Island to China in June 2018. The FFD phase will increase the field’s production capacity from the existing 8,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 16,000bpd.

Details of full field development phase of Bu Haseer field

The full phase development will add water injection facilities at the field to maintain reservoir pressure. The tie-ins of existing wellhead tower (WHT-BH1) will be modified and a new offshore wellhead tower (WHT-BH2) will be installed. The wellhead towers will be linked by a 12in-diameter pipeline, subsea cables and riser, which will be installed using the DLB-750 pipelay barge.

A new separator, scrubber and metering facilities wil also be installed at Das Island, as part of the development phase. In addition, 10in-diameter water injection pipelines, communication cables, and tie-ins to the existing facilities at Zirku Island will be laid.

Contractors involved

Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract worth AED633m ($172.3m) for the full phase development of the field in July 2018.

NRGtech Services was contracted to conduct a hazard and operability study for the project, while Inspection Verification Bureau (IVB) provided the design review services and issued the final certificate for the FFD phase.

Penspen, a UK-based company, received a contract worth more than $70m to provide project management consultancy (PMC) services in November 2018.

Consolidated Contractors Engineering received an EPC contract worth $30m in December 2016 for performing brownfield works in the EPS phase. The scope of work included pre-commissioning activities, as well as civil, piping, structural steel, and eletrical and instrumentation work.

Seacor Marine provided its Seacor Mariner survey vessel to perform a geophysical route survey for the project between Zirku Island and Bu Haseer field in February 2017.

Boskalis International’s Colbart and Goodwin Sand backhoe dredgers were used to perform trenching and back-filling works at Zirku Island.

Other contractors involved in the project include BSS Technologies, RMT Valvomeccanica and Petromac.