FCX Orton – part of the specialist flow control FCX Group – has secured two major orders for Shell Nigeria’s offshore operations. One of the contracts will be with Shell EA while the second will be for a 300,000 tonne FPSO floating production and offloading project with Shell Bonga. Both projects are located in around 1000 metres of deep water, 120km SW of the Niger Delta.
The Shell Bonga FPSO will have a two million barrel storage capacity and will have facilities for oil, gas and injection water handling. It will be linked to the Bonny terminal with gas from the Bonga field exported via pipeline to an offshore storage facility shared with Shell EA.
The orders from FCX Orton for the project include lined butterfly valves, triple eccentric metal-seated valves in sizes ranging from three inches to 30 inches. The valves will be manually operated or installed complete with pneumatic actuators and spring returns for ESD application.
Some of the specialist valve products used in the processes for Shell include a carbon steel body and a stainless steel trim. A special lined soft-seated valve design has also been developed for the applications, to suit 300# pipeline flanges.
The major contractor for the USD 300 million engineering design, fabrication, integration and commissioning of the 17,000t topside production is AMEC. Around 200,000 barrels of oil and 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day will be produced. The newly built hull will arrive in the UK in the third quarter of 2002, following construction in the Far East under a separate contract. The complex topsides will be installed onto the hull to create the 300,000 tonne FPSO vessel.
