Tullow Upbeat about Timeline for First Oil Production

By: Daniel Nonor

In line with efforts to meet its last quarter of 2010 time line to start pouring Ghana’s first commercial oil from the jubilee fields, Tullow Ghana Limited has began the installation of a number of subsea equipment required for siphoning oil from under the seabed, with the latest being the Christmas Tree.

Some other equipment currently being installed includes the Riser station and production lines. The Christmas tree is an assembly of control valves, gauges, pipes, chokes and fittings used to control oil and gas flow from a completed well and are installed on the ocean floor.”These installations indicate that production can start anytime from now,” Mr. Gayheart Mensah, communications Manager of Tullow Ghana Limited told The Chronicle.

The Sekondi Naval Base and the Takoradi Port have been the main entry points for the equipment. Before the vessels carrying the equipment set sail for Ghana, a team from Tullow Ghana Limited visited some of the companies contracted by the Jubilee partners as manufacturers.

The companies which are based in Houston, Texas, in the United States of America, include MODEC, FMC Technologies and Spitzer industries Incorporated, and are said to be specialized companies that manufacture various subsea equipment for oil production.

Spitzer Industries Incorporated is well known in the oil industry for the manufacture of Manifolds and Riser Stations, both of which are critical in bringing out the oil from belly of the sea. FMC Technologies manufactured the “Christmas Trees” for the Jubilee Project.

The team from Tullow Ghana Limited also visited the Theodora Spool base in Mobile Alabama. Whilst there the Deep Blue Vessel, farmed for spooling oil production pipelines, was busy at it, in preparation for its departure to Ghana. Some of the pipelines being spooled onto the vessel had a diameter in excess of 17cm and were 1.5km in length.

Mr. Gayheart Mensah and a member of the team that visited the US said “there are expectations among Ghanaian that the oil find should transform Ghana’s economy and spin off jobs immediately. These are huge expectations that need to be managed. ”

He was confident that with the level of technology deployed by Tullow Ghana Limited, the operator of the Jubilee Field and the quality of personnel working on the project, the target date of producing first oil by quarter 4 this year will be met.