Telemark Hub, Gulf of Mexico

The Telemark Hub is a deepwater offshore project in the Gulf of Mexico. It is owned and operated by ATP Oil & Gas. The project involves three fields – Mirage, Morgus and Telemark.

The Mirage field is located in Mississippi Canyon (MC) block 941 at a water depth of 3,800ft. It was discovered in 1998. The Morgus Field is located at a water depth of 4,304ft of water at MC block 942. Both the adjoining fields were developed together. The third field, Telemark, is situated in Atwater Valley block 63 at a water depth of 4,450ft in the US Gulf of Mexico.

ATP Titan

The wells from the three fields will be tied back to the self-contained floating drilling and production triple column spar structure ATP Titan.

The development of the Telemark area through the installation of the floating drilling and production platform spar was finalised in 2007. The spar is a multi-column, deep draft platform designed to have a capacity of 25 million barrels per day of oil and 60mcf of gas per day. The life of the platform is expected to be of 40 years.

The construction of the platform started in 2007 and was completed in 2009. It was named ATP Titan in August 2009. The platform sailed out of the Gulf Marine Fabricators in Texas in November 2009. By the end of 2009, the platform was moored at the Mirage and Morgus fields. It will be moved to Telemark field for further drilling once production from Mirage and Morgus fields gets completed. Production from the hub came onstream in March 2010.

Telemark Hub Development

The project was developed in two phases. Phase I consists of the drilling and development of the Mirage and Morgus fields. During 2008, the West Sirius semi-sub drilled three wells over both fields.

Technip provided flowlines, fabrication and installation of subsea structures and jumpers and pre-commissioning of the project. Telemark phase I will produce over 25 million boe.

The second phase comprises drilling and developing the Telemark field. It was discovered in 2003 in the southern region of greater Telemark area when exploratory drilling encountered 140ft of hydrocarbons in Miocene sands.

Initially, the field was designed to have its own production hub. But later, the wells were decided to be tied back to ATP Titan.

Telemark’s deepwater Atwater Valley no 4 well came onstream in March 2010. It lies at a water depth of 4,000ft. In April 2010, Minerals Management Service approved comingling the two zones at the Atwater Valley 63 no 4 well.  Phase II will add an additional 17 million boe by 2014.

Mirage and Morgus drilling

Two wells were drilled at Mirage and Morgus. Third well was drilled to a total depth of around 20,043ft and encountered 266 net feet of pay in MC 942.

The third well at Mirage and the fourth well at Morgus were drilled to 12,000ft. They are scheduled to be drilled to total depth and completed in 2010.

Telemark contracts

The contract for development of Telemark field was awarded to Bluewater Industries. Bluewater awarded a sub-contract for installation support services to Clough in December 2009.

Under the contract, Bluewater uses Clough’s offshore construction vessel Normand Clipper. The vessel provides accommodation, transportation of construction crew and fuel bunkering services, as well as storage and transfer of construction materials required for platform installation.

The contract for providing flowlines, risers, jumpers and subsea structures for the Mirage field was given to Technip in August 2007.

The contract work covered design and manufacture of one high pressure flexible riser measuring two miles long, and engineering for the installation and welding of one oil and gas production flowline around 13 miles long.

The real-time riser monitoring system for the platform will be provided by Pulse Structural Monitoring under a contract signed in January 2010.

Ocean Victory and West Sirius

Diamond Offshore’s semi-submersible rig Ocean Victory was deployed in 2009 to drill four wells and run casing in four wells. Ocean Victory was built in 1973 at Avondale Shipyard, USA. The rig can operate at a maximum depth of 5,500ft under water and can drill to a maximum depth of 25,000ft.

The West Sirius was used for drilling and casing on the upper sections of the Mirage wells. West Sirius is a semi-submersible rig owned by Seadrill. It can operate at a maximum depth of 10,000ft under water and can drill to maximum depth of 37,500ft.