FMC Lands New Perdido Work – Analyst Blog

Oil drilling equipment maker FMC Technologies Inc. (FTI) announced the receipt of a subsea infrastructure contract from Anglo-Dutch supermajor Royal Dutch Shell plc. (RDS.A). The deal calls for FMC Technologies to provide subsea and topside systems to Shell’s Perdido Stage II Regional Development Project in the Gulf of Mexico. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Shell holds a 35% operated interest in the Perdido project, with the other partners being oil supermajors Chevron Corp. (CVX) and BP plc. (BP).

 

The contract calls for FMC Technologies to supply five subsea production trees and three subsea water injection trees, as well as build subsea and topside controls, manifold and tie-in equipment, and other systems and services. The company expects delivery to begin in the third quarter of 2010. The order is part of FMC Technologies’ strong and longstanding relationship with Shell.

 

Last week, Shell announced first production from its massive Perdido platform in the Gulf of Mexico following more than a decade of work. The $3 billion development, which boasts of several industry firsts, lies in about 8,000 feet of water about 200 miles south of the Texas coast.

 

Perdido is the world’s deepest offshore drilling and production facility and the most remote producing platform in the Gulf of Mexico with a projected economic life of about 20 years. Additionally, it serves the deepest subsea well in the world and is the first project to achieve commercial production of oil and natural gas from the ‘Lower Tertiary’ play, a frontier area in the ultra-deep sector of the Gulf of Mexico. The 50,000 ton facility will handle production from the Great White, Silvertip and Tobago deepwater fields near the Gulf’s U.S. border with Mexico and is designed to produce 100,000 barrels of oil and 20 million cubic feet of natural gas per day at its peak.

 

FMC Technologies has supported the Perdido development since 2007. In 2008, the company set a new subsea deepwater completion record of 9,356 feet at the Silvertip field, part of the Perdido project.

 

Incorporated in 2000, Houston, Texas-based FMC Technologies is a leading manufacturer and supplier of technology solutions for the energy industry. The company, which operates 25 manufacturing facilities in 15 countries, is engaged in the designing, producing and servicing technologically sophisticated systems and products such as subsea production and processing systems, surface wellhead production systems, high pressure fluid control equipment, measurement solutions, and marine loading systems for the oil and gas industry.