San Francisco: Chevron is to move the Big Foot tension-leg platform (TLP) away from its deepwater location in the Gulf of Mexico after damage occurred to subsea installation tendons.
The incident means production in the Big Foot field will not commence in late 2015 as planned, the American oil producer said Monday.
These tendons are used to attach the platform to the seafloor and are not connected to the subsea wells. In this case, the tendons were pre-installed in preparation for connection to the Big Foot TLP but at some point between Friday and Sunday several of them lost buoyancy. The reason is not yet known.
No damage was done to the Big Foot platform or rig as it was not connected to any subsea wells or tendons at the time of the incident. No injuries reported.
The $5.1bn platform is designed to process 75,000 bbl of crude oil and 25m cf of natural gas per day.
