Pemex awards Litoral A series of offshore platforms
In October 2012, the national oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) selected Dragados Offshore from Spain for the Compresion Alta Litoral A (CA Litoral A) project.
This CA Litoral A project is part of the Litoral A Pemex‘s program to develop recent oil discoveries in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Since BP‘s incident in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico, Pemex adjusted its strategy to reduce risks and costs.
Among those decisions, Pemex moved its focus again on the shallow water of the Gulf of Mexico, such as the Tsimin and Xux new discoveries in the Bay of Campeche, offshore the State of Campeche.
To compensate the depletion of the old Cantarell field, Pemex is planning to develop these gas fields containing up to 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) by only 26 meter water depth.
To develop Litoral A, Pemex is planning series of platforms such as the CA Litoral A.
The purpose of the CA Litoral A project is to improve the flexibility of the process with higher gas compression capabilities in order to allow the oil and gas production increase when the whole Litoral A project is completed.
This project is also part of the new regulation enforced in Mexico to reduce the flared gas.
In four years Pemex managed to reduce its flared gas by 66% with the financial support of the World Bank.
The CA Litoral A project will have the capacity to compress natural gas up to 85 kg/cm2 with high pressure compression module in the topsides of the platform.
For this CA Litoral A offshore platform Pemex placed the order to the Spanish contractor Dragados Offshore for an amount of $449 million capital expenditure.
Dragados to execute Pemex CA Litoral A platform
According to the terms of the CA Litoral A platform project contract, Dragados Offsore is providing:
– Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC)
– Load-out and sea fastening
– Transport and installation
– Connection of the bridges with the Litoral T platform currently in production by Industria del Hierro-ICA-Fluor Daniel
– Testing and start up.
Dragados Offshore was not the lowest bidder on this package but offered the highest local content since the whole platform will be executed in Mexico.
The CA Litoral A will weight 15,000 ton including:
– 9,000 ton for the main deck
– 1,850 ton for the jacket, bridges and substructure
Pemex expects the CA Litoral A compression platform to be completed for first production by mid 2015.
Pemex to receive bids on PB Litoral A central platform
The next package to be awarded is the most important part of the whole Litoral A project with the PB Litoral A central processing platform.
The PB Litoral A platform will have the capacity to treat:
– 200,000 b/d of crude oil
– 600 million pcsd of natural gas
Estimated to require $500 million capital expenditure, Pemex is expecting bids from:
– Dragados Offshore from Spain
– McDermott from USA
– Cisca from Mexico
The produced oil will be pumped to the Dos Bocas oil terminal.
In parallel Pemex is procceding to the qualification of the potential bidders for the next compression platform called CB Litoral A.
Despite Presidential changes in Mexico, Pemex maintains its strategy in upstream with shallow water oil field development and gives the opportunity to Dragados Offshore to consolidate its market leadership on offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
