Leighton Offshore has announced that following the successful hydrostatic testing of the onshore and offshore pipeline systems and subsequent final commissioning of the offshore export facility, crude oil was now flowing to a single point mooring (SPM) installed under the $799m Iraq Crude Oil Export Expansion Project (ICOEEP) Phase 1 in Iraq.
The first tanker was successfully berthed onto the fully operational export facility on 7 March. This single facility has export capacity of 900,000 bpd, which to put it in context exceeds the total export capacity of Australia, which currently stands at 550,000 bpd.
The ICOEEP project is one of the most important strategic projects in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil’s (MoO) Master Plan, aimed at developing further offshore loading facilities to enable export capability of 4.5 MMBOPD within 5 years.
Since commencing Phase 1 of the development project in late 2010 Leighton Offshore has successfully completed on a full engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning basis:
– The installation of three export facility SPM buoys and associated subsea infrastructure,
– Approximately 130 km of 48” pipeline offshore and 17km of onshore 48” pipeline to FAO Island terminal and the construction of the beach valve station at FAO,
– Associated SSVM and Tie-In spools,
– Major dredging with 23 million m3 spoil removed from the site.
Following the successful commencement of Crude Oil transfer from the first export facility Leighton Offshore is now working to complete the second and third facilities under this phase of the development project. The second export facility is planned for availability before the end of the second quarter of 2012. Leighton is also responsible for the commissioning and operating of the initial ICOEEP Phase 1 facilities and system.
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Dredging Today Staff, March 12, 2012; Image: leightonoffshore