BW Offshore-owned FPSO BW Catcher has left Keppel Shipyard in Singapore and is currently in transit to the Premier Oil-operated Catcher field in the UK sector of the North Sea.
The FPSO was built by Keppel Shipyard where a naming ceremony was held in April. Before it headed to its final offshore location, the vessel recently completed sea trials .
BW Catcher is expected to reach UK waters early in the fourth quarter, depending on prevailing weather conditions, BW Offshore informed over the weekend.
Upon its arrival, BW Catcher will start a seven-year fixed term contract, with extension options of up to 18 years, with Premier Oil. Based on a field life of 10 years, the contract value for BW Offshore is $2.3 billion, including FPSO charter rate and opex.
“The BW Catcher has been completed on time and within budget, and we are especially pleased with the good HSE performance during the construction project. We have worked over 11 million man hours without a lost time injury and in total around 19 million man hours. The FPSO is now underway to the North Sea for hook-up at the Catcher field, and with first oil scheduled later this year,” said Carl K. Arnet , the CEO of BW Offshore.
BW Catcher is 241 meters long, 50 meters wide, and 27 meters deep. It has an oil storage capacity of 650,000 barrels and a processing capacity of 60,000 barrels per day. The FPSO has a design life of 20 years of uninterrupted operations, and will be moored using a submerged turret production system.
The Premier-operated Catcher development, made up of several fields discovered between 2010 and 2013, is located 170 kilometers south-east of Aberdeen. The development entails 22 subsea wells, 14 producers and 8 water injectors, on the Catcher, Varadero and Burgman fields, which will be tied back to the Catcher FPSO.