Petrobras Awards Lapa Field Work to WGK, Brazil

In the first, Wood Group Kenny has begun a conceptual engineering study of two alternatives of pipeline heating systems for the Petrobras pre-salt Lapa field, water-heated pipe-in-pipe (WH-PiP) and electrically trace-heated pipe-in-pipe (ETH-PiP).

The project aims to provide Petrobras and its partners, BG and Repsol Sinopec, with the basis to evaluate the technical feasibility of the south west area tieback on the field and determining the most cost-effective technology. The application of active heating pipeline technology would be a first in a pre-salt environment.

Wood Group Kenny’s scope on this contract includes the studies of flow assurance analysis, mechanical and installation design, thermo-mechanical analysis, material selection, and technological gap evaluation. Cost assessment and an installation capabilities survey will also be conducted within the scope of the study.

Wood Group Kenny is supporting Petrobras and its partners from their offices in Rio de Janeiro, Houston and London, to address the multidisciplinary scope on the pre-salt Lapa Field.

The second contract will focus on engineering support to provide conceptual, basic and detailed design deliverables to their subsea engineering group. In addition, Wood Group Kenny will be responsible for a set of engineering studies to be carried out within the contract period.

Leveraging on its global expertise in subsea and pipeline engineering, Wood Group Kenny will focus on optimizing riser, pipeline and equipment engineering design, with the objective of increasing the competitiveness of the rigid solution for Petrobras’ subsea development.

Hugues Corrignan, director of Wood Group Kenny do Brasil said, “Wood Group Kenny has already worked with Petrobras on several projects and the award of these two contracts recognises the strength of the relationship with a principal client in the area.

“We are particularly pleased to be selected to support Petrobras in these challenging projects and have the opportunity to positively contribute to the introduction of innovative technologies in the Brazilian environment.”

The Lapa Field is located in 7,021 feet (2,140 metres) of water, roughly 170 miles (273 kilometres) off the south coast of Rio de Janeiro within Block BM-S-9. In December 2013, Petrobras submitted a Declaration of Commerciality (DoC) to Brazil’s ANP for the pre-salt Carioca field in block BM-S-9 (renamed Lapa). The DoC proposes that Lapa holds recoverable volumes of 459 MMboe.