BP to Develop the Rhum Gas Field.

BP and partners The Iranian Oil Company have announced plans to develop the Rhum gas field 240 miles north east of Aberdeen.

The development will cost around £350 million.

Work on the project will commence immediately with first gas expected late in 2005. A number of contracts for the project have already been let. These include the contracts for module fabrication, and detailed design and project management, both of which were won by Amec. It is expected that further contracts will be awarded in the coming weeks.

The Rhum field is located 380km (240 miles) north east of Aberdeen in 109 meters (350 feet) of water. The field is 44km (28 miles) from the BP operated Bruce platform. The development of the field will involve a subsea tieback to the Bruce field with gas being exported onwards from Bruce via the Frigg pipeline system to St. Fergus. Associated condensate will be piped via Bruce into the Forties pipeline system. Rhum has estimated resources of 1.1 trillion cubic feet (31 billion cubic meters) of gas, of which, 800 billion cubic feet (23 billion cubic meters) is deemed recoverable.

The Rhum field is a high temperature, high pressure reservoir, experiencing down-hole temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius and pressures of 12,000psi. For comparison purposes, the Bruce gas field, to which Rhum will be tied in, records temperatures of 99 degrees Celsius and pressures of 6,000psi.

The field will be tied back to Bruce via a 44km export line which will involve a 22 inch High Integrity, Pressure Protection System (HIPPS) protected pipe-in-pipe main pipeline. The pipeline, which has to be specially manufactured to withstand the extremes in temperature and pressure, will be made in Japan. As part of the development, new gas processing facilities will be installed on the existing Bruce Compression Reception Centre (CR) platform.

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