The Bahr Essalam (former NC41) Offshore Field is a major gas development centred on the Sabratha Platform located 110 km from the Libyan coast. The first phase of the development foresees the drilling and completion of 11 subsea wells and 15 platform wells. The subsea production facilities comprise 11 conventional dual-bore trees, installed within two Protective Structure and Manifolds (PSM) operated and controlled from the platform via a control and service umbilical. The Bahr Essalam Offshore development is split into three separate EPIC contracts:
- *
Production Platform, awarded to a Consortium between Saipem and Hyundai Heavy Industries.
- *
Gathering end Export Pipelines awarded to Saipem.
- *
Subsea Production Facilities awarded to BCD Consortium formed by Saipem S.A. (formerly Bouygues Offshore), Cooper Cameron (UK) Ltd. and Doris Engineering. After a description of the subsea facilities, the paper will present the main challenges of the project as follows:
- *
Material selection and application due to aggressive and high temperature well fluid
- *
Short delivery time for initial Subsea hardware
- *
Supporting a two-rig drilling and completion operation
- *
High level of interface co-ordination requiring close attention
- *
Scheduling of offshore operations to avoid interference and delays
