World's First Buoyant Tower Set Offshore Peru

Horton Shallow Water Development's (SWD) CX-15 buoyant tower has been set as planned for BPZ Energy off the coast of Peru.

The Buoyant Tower concept draws on the proven technology of the cellspar and the design provides multiple benefits for fields where other concepts would be problematic requiring high capital costs and expensive crane barges for installation. The design allows for oil storage if needed, can eliminate separate shallow water drilling units and provides a high level of flexibility for the operator.

This Buoyant Tower is located approximately one mile from the existing CX-11 platform in a water depth of 175 feet (53 m) in the Corvina field in offshore block Z-1.  Both platforms will be interconnected via a series of subsea pipelines.

The design of the platform features a number of specific areas that greatly reduced cost and simplified setting.  The transport vessel; the Osprey, a submersible heavy lift ship, transported the topside and hull tower components of the platform to the field site and also launched the tower and was used for mating the decks to the tower.   The hull was initially floated off in a horizontal orientation and then upended with a controlled flood of the lower hull cavities.  This process was complete in a single day.  Additional ballast was then added to the hull structure before it was mated with the topside positioned on a cantilever structure, also on the Osprey.

All operations went to plan and the combined topside and hull was wet towed to the final location where the last phase was to set the whole structure into the seabed using the integral suction foundation. 

Kevin Chell, CEO of SWD stated “We have reached an exciting milestone with the successful launch, mating and setting of the new buoyant tower platform showing the design can deliver in real terms and proving the methodology for a system that does not need a heavy lift barge. ”

Horton Shallow Water Developments (SWD) is a joint venture company between Horton Wison Deepwater and GMC Inc.

GMC is an industry leader in innovative engineering, project management and installation solutions for offshore oil & gas SURF, drilling, and production projects.