Malaysia-based international offshore oil and gas services provider, Bumi Armada Berhad, and an India-based diversified business group Shapoorji Pallonji Company Limited on Saturday announced the ready for departure of its FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading) vessel, “Armada Sterling” at a ceremony at Keppel Shipyard Singapore.
The FPSO Armada Sterling will go to work for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) at the D1 field, 200 km offshore from Mumbai. The D1 FPSO is the first for ONGC and marks yet another milestone in ONGC’s development of its marginal fields in India.
Mr Hassan Basma, Executive Director/CEO of Bumi Armada Berhad stated, “From the start, ONGC demanded a fast track, zero tolerance schedule of 19 months from contract award to First Oil, underscoring their confidence in our capabilities and faith in our execution model. We remain on schedule for a record First Oil date in December 2012.”
“This FPSO presented Bumi Armada with major challenges such as designing a permanent mooring system for the extreme monsoon weather off the west coast of India. The internal turret mooring system, the first for Bumi Armada has been specifically designed for severe monsoon conditions prevalent in the field with maximum wave height of 21.4 metres.”
“This sterling achievement could not have materialised without the full support of our partners, Forbes & Company Limited, a subsidiary of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, and their extreme and valuable knowledge of India and ONGC. The successful completion of this FPSO is testimony of our strong and enduring partnerships with them.
“Integral to our success is the unwavering support of our value chain but more importantly, we have done it safely with a total of 5 million manhours without LTI.”
Mr Shapoor Mistry, Managing Director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group said, “Shapoorji Pallonji has always been at the forefront of undertaking projects that contribute to building infrastructure for India. The delivery of the first FPSO project is a major step towards ensuring self-sufficiency in the strategically critical area of Oil and Gas exploration for country.”
Bumi Armada’s joint venture company with Forbes & Company Limited, Forbes Bumi Armada Offshore Limited, was awarded the seven year fixed term charter contract valued at approximately USD620 million, with the option of annual extensions of up to 6 years in August 2011 valued at approximately USD318 million in aggregate.
FPSO Armada Sterling, the former 107,000 deadweight tonne tanker Monte Umbe, is designed for 50,000 bopd production capacity and net storage capacity of 750,000 barrels and accommodation for a crew of 70 persons. The FPSO project includes the design, supply and installation of the Subsea Umbilical Risers and Flowlines in 100 metres water depth. This will be carried out using the Armada Hawk, a DP-2* installation vessel.
Armada Sterling is the latest addition to Bumi Armada’s growing fleet of FPSOs that also include Armada TGT 1 in Vietnam and two others – Armada Perkasa and Armada Perdana – which have been operating offshore Nigeria. It has one more FPSO under conversion for Apache Energy Ltd. Mr Basma added, “The successful conversion of the D-1 FPSO underscores Bumi Armada’s increasing success in harsh environment FPSOs and fast track proven execution model.”
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Bumi Armada, October 29, 2012