American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2016 - 84

SpecialReport: Offshore Technology
In fact, Anadarko was able to move
from concept selection to cutting first steel
for Heidelberg spar's hull within six
months, and from concept selection to cutting first steel on the topsides in only 12
months. In addition, Anadarko reduced the
number of engineering man-hours for
Heidelberg's hull and topsides by 17 and
24 percent, respectively, and the fabrication man-hours by 16 and 17 percent, compared with its Lucius twin.
Lucius (Keathley Canyon 874, 875, 918
and 919) is estimated to contain more than
300 million barrels of recoverable oilequivalent reserves, while Heidelberg
(Green Canyon 859, 860, 903, 904 and
948) holds an estimated 200 million-400
million boe of recoverable resources.
Anadarko is operator of both projects (Figure 1). ExxonMobil, Plains Offshore Operators/PXP Offshore, Petrobras, Eni and
Teikoku (Inpex) are partners on Lucius;
and Eni, ExxonMobil, Marubeni Oil &
Gas, Freeport-McMoRan, Statoil and
Cobalt International Energy are partners
on Heidelberg.
An additional strategic consideration at
Lucius was implementing a hub-andspoke development philosophy-the first
spar host facility built by Anadarko since
2006. It was designed not only to accommodate the initial six wet-tree Lucius oil
wells in the southeast corner of Keathley
Canyon, but also to host two subsea well
tiebacks from ExxonMobil Development
Co.'s Hadrian South natural gas field, located eight miles to the southeast in 7,500
feet of water at Keathley Canyon 964
(ExxonMobil's deepest subsea tieback).
The 300 MMcf/d tieback was executed in
parallel with the Lucius development,

FIGURE 2
Lucius Geology and Well Log

The Basin Floor in
the GOM Deepwater

and achieved first production in March
2015.
The ability to successfully execute a
project as large and complex as Lucius on
a fast-track timeline can be credited largely to Anadarko's development strategy of
utilizing a core group of proven, trusted
suppliers, and to close cooperation between the Lucius and Hadrian South
project teams. Based on Anadarko's experience on Lucius, several staffing and organizational changes were recommended
for future major projects, including Heidelberg. The recommendations primarily
enhance compliance efforts with Safety
and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) regulations, the predictabil-

FIGURE1
Anadarko Deepwater Gulf Portfolio

84 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

ity of equipment delivery for fabricating
topsides, and managing offshore hookup
and commissioning efforts.
Concept Selection
Figure 2 shows a simplified geological
interpretation of the Lucius Field. The discovery well was drilled to a total depth of
20,000 feet by the ENSCO 8500 drill ship
in late 2009, penetrating a 200-foot subsalt Pliocene oil column. A successful appraisal well reached TD in early 2011, and
a well test was performed on the discovery well in May 2011.
Delineation and testing showed the Lucius Field had thick pay zones consolidated in a relatively compact area. The relatively shallow Pliocene formation also
made drilling and completion far less costly than in a deeper formation such as the
Lower Tertiary.
Anadarko assembled a team consisting
of exploration, development, drilling,
completion, facility, marketing and operations to begin evaluating Lucius development options in mid-2010. The team considered stand-alone floating facilities
based on both a truss spar and semisubmersible. Even though there is potentially more offshore installation work in integrating topsides to a spar hull than a
semisubmersible, the company believed its
long-standing experience in designing,
building and operating spar hulls would
work favorably for the project, despite the
work.
Moreover, a truss spar could utilize

American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2016

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