The Woodside-operated Shenzi field has undergone planned shutdown to approach integrity and reliability scopes
An unplanned outage also had to be addressed, after which a key well was brought to production in November 2024.
The Shenzi North project has been in production in the US Gulf of Mexico since September 2023. For optimised production, this two-well subsea tieback operates as an extension of the existing Shenzi infrastructure.
Situated approximately 195 km off the coast of Louisiana in the Green Canyon protraction area, the Shenzi assets comprise of the Caesar oil pipeline and the Cleopatra natural gas pipeline that form the main source of the several connecting pipelines that help the product reach onshore from the Green Canyon region. While the crude oil produced is consumed in Gulf Coast, the natural gas generated from the field is directed to the Cleopatra via a lateral pipeline that connects onshore to the Neptune processing plant in St Mary’s Parish, Louisiana.
Commenting on the project's notably short turnaround, Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill had said, "First production from Shenzi North shows how we are leveraging existing infrastructure to increase production and provide attractive returns from our Gulf of Mexico business.
"Taking the project from FID to first oil in 26 months is a great achievement. I commend the project team on safely bringing this resource into production well ahead of schedule.”
Enjoying a 72% interest, Woodside had discovered the Shenzi field in 2002, with first hydrocarbons production following in 2009. Besides Woodside, Repsol is a partner in the field with a 28% interest.
Gulf Coast customers benefit from more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day and 50 million standard cubic feet of gas per day that comes from the Shenzi field.
Peak production from Mad Dog
A well from the Mad Dog Argos that is part of the Mad Dog conventional oil and gas field situated 200km off the coast of Louisiana in the south-eastern Green Canyon protraction area, US Gulf of Mexico, has maintained production at the peak rate of ~130 kbbl/d, and is undergoing an infill injector well.
Argos is considered the driving force of the second phase of the Mad Dog project as it helped the brownfield site to reach a gross production capacity of up to 140,000 boepd. This semi-submersible platform has helped bp to boost production by atleast 20%. "Argos is key to our strategy of increasing our Gulf of Mexico production to around 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the middle of this decade,” said Ewan Drummond, Senior Vice President, Projects, Production and Operations.
An infill development well work has also began at Mad Dog A-Spar, besides a planned offshore facility shutdown.
A Spar is a subsea truss spar which processed Phase 1 of the Mad Dog project, with over 100,000 boepd transported to Ship Shoal 332B through the Caesar pipeline, followed by the Cameron Highway Oil Pipeline System, which further provides gateway to the US interior. More than 60 mn st cu/ft of gas, on the other hand, goes through the Cleopatra pipeline to finally reach the Nautilus Gas Transportation System into Louisiana.
While bp operates the Mad Dog field, Woodside holds a 23.9% interest in the project.
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