A letter of agreement has been signed for the provision, lease and operation of a semi-submersible production facility for the Tubular Bells field in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM).
The agreement allows SBM Offshore to start engineering and commit substantial hardware investment in the facility until final sanction which has been scheduled for the second quarter of 2011.
The final lease and operate contract will be based on a production handling agreement for the facility for an initial 5 years period.
The initially committed value is limited to US$ 170 million and SBM Offshore will design, construct, install, and operate the production facility.
About SBM Offshore
The Dutch public company SBM Offshore N.V. is the holding company of a group of international, marine technology orientated companies. Its business is to serve on a global basis the offshore oil and gas industry by supplying engineered products, vessels and systems, and offshore oil and gas production services.
The product line comprises:
• Offshore import/export terminals for crude oil, refined products, LPG and LNG, mostly based on the single point mooring principle, Floating Production and/or Storage and Offloading systems (FSOs and FPSOs) and other floating production facilities based on ship hulls, semi-submersibles and Tension Leg Platforms (TLPs);
• Offshore oil and gas production services through the leasing of integrated production and storage facilities owned and operated by the Company;
• Design, construction and supply of semi-submersible drilling platforms;
• Special designs and engineering services and delivery of specific hardware components for dynamically positioned drillships, semi-submersible drilling platforms, jack-up drilling platforms, jack-up platforms for civil construction, large capacity offshore cranes, elevating and lifting systems, crane vessels and other specialised work vessels;
• Offshore construction and installation contracting services.
[mappress]
Source: SBM Offshore,September 20, 2010,