Final Clair Ridge modules leave South Korea

The final Clair Ridge modules left the Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) yard today – 6 April – marking the end of the project’s fabrication efforts in South Korea

The Drilling Platform (DP) drilling modules, transported on the Dockwise Mighty Servant 1, will travel to the North Sea via Singapore and the Cape of Good Hope. They follow the departure of the initial DP modules on three other Dockwise vessels which began to depart from South Korea on 14th March.

Since moving to South Korea in early 2012, the Clair Ridge team has been focused on delivering eight modules plus a bridge linking the two new platforms. The team will now demobilise with a number of people heading back to the UK to join the hook-up and commissioning team for the final offshore phase of the project. The modules are expected to arrive in the Clair field during May, where they will be installed onto the platform’s jacket by the transport and installation team using the Heerema Thialf heavy lift crane vessel. Following installation, the offshore team will ramp up to around 750 people who will hookup and commissioning the DP modules in preparation for first oil.

Clair Ridge is a multi-billion investment in the second phase of development on the Clair field which lies 75km to the west of the Shetland Islands. The project comprises two new bridge-linked platforms and new pipeline infrastructure to connect storage and redelivery facilities on Shetland. The next major milestone will be the installation of the production and drilling (DP) platform topside modules, scheduled to begin in May, with production expected to commence at year end 2017.

The Clair Ridge development will have the capability to produce an estimated 640 million barrels of oil over a 40 year period, with peak production expected to be up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day.

Clair field fast facts

• The Clair field was originally discovered in 1977.
• The Clair field is located 75 km west of Shetland and extends over an area of 220km^2, in water depths of approximately 140m.
• The first development phase (Clair Phase 1) was sanctioned in 2001. It was developed with a single fixed platform with production and process topsides facilities, supported by a steel jacket and associated oil and gas export facilities.
• Production from the Clair field commenced in February 2005 from the first phase facilities and has so far produced around 80 million barrels. The first phase facilities are designed to continue producing until 2028.
• The second phase of the development - Clair Ridge - is planned to target the part of the field to the north of Clair Phase 1.
• Oil and gas is exported via pipelines to the Sullom Voe terminal on Shetland where it is processed for onward use.
• Total hydrocarbons initially in place across the entire field are estimated at more than 7 billion barrels of oil equivalent, although due to the highly complex and fractured nature of the reservoir, there has been considerable uncertainty as to how much of the oil could be recovered.
• The Clair Ridge facilities are designed to continue producing until 2050.
• The Clair Ridge facilities will consist of two bridge-linked fixed steel jacket platforms and topsides, comprising a drilling and production (DP) platform and a quarters and utilities (QU) platform.Around 80% of the estimated £1.1bn of drilling costs will be spent in the UK.
• Following a global competitive tendering process the award for the topside processing modules was made to Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea.
• LoSal® EOR was developed by BP’s enhanced recovery technology team, known as Pushing Reservoir Limits™, following a decade of laboratory tests at BP’s UK research centre at Sunbury-on-Thames, using sandstone samples from across BP’s global operations. Then, near well-bore single-well tests in several oilfields were performed to prove the technology worked in practice.