Australia’s Woodside Energy has achieved a significant milestone on its US$7.2 billion Trion field development offshore Mexico with first steel being cut for the floating production unit (FPU) at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ yard in South Korea.
The first cutting of steel for the Trion FPU was marked with a ceremony on 13 November at HHI’s yard in Ulsan where it is fabricating the FPU under an approximate $1.2 billion engineering, procurement and construction contract it won in June 2023.
The FPU is scheduled for delivery in April 2027.
“This is an exciting moment for all those involved with the Trion development, and we are pleased to be embarking on this important phase of work with HHI, our contracting partner for the floating production unit,” said Woodside chief executive, Meg O’Neill.
“The steel-cutting ceremony kicks off a multi-year construction campaign for the Trion FPU, which is the critical path for the development as we progress towards targeted first oil in 2028.”
The ultra-deepwater Trion project, which Woodside is developing in partnership with Mexico’s state-owned Pemex having a 40% interest, is more than 15% complete.
Trion lies in a water depth of some 2500 metres approximately 180 kilometres from the Mexican coast. The field contains 479 million barrels of oil equivalent of gross best estimate contingent resources.
Other key contractors for Trion include SBM Offshore for the floating storage and offloading unit – which will be built by Cosco, Transocean for the development drilling, OneSubsea for the subsea trees and Corinth Pipeworks for subsea pipelines.
O’Neill was joined at the steel cutting ceremony by HHI chief executive, Lee Sang-kyun, and Mexico’s Ambassador to Korea, Carlos Penafiel Soto.
Source: By Amanda Battersby from upstreamonline.com