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According to documents submitted to the Environmental Management Authority by EOG Resources, first gas from the Sercan field is expected in the fourth quarter of 2016. The new development, that has received very little publicity, is located in the East Manzanilla Joint Venture Development Block located 65 km off the east coast of Trinidad. The field is located in the West Block acreage originally licensed to bpTT, but the acreage containing the field has been converted into a joint development block with each company holding a fifty percent working interest in the project. EOG are the operator for the development.
The environmental assessment report for the Sercan platform installation work indicates it will have a capacity to produce 250 mmsfcd of natural gas, which will be welcome news for the gas starved downstream processors in Trinidad. First gas is expected by the end of 2016, with full project completion scheduled for the second quarter of 2017.
The Sercan development will consist of an unmanned 6-slot wellhead protector (WHP) platform located in 104 metres of water. Gas will be produced via a 4 km long 14” multiphase subsea pipeline tried back to the Toucan Platform, also operated by EOG, and then through the existing Toucan sales gas pipeline to the National Gas Company. Some modifications will be required on the Toucan platform to accommodate the gas production from Sercan. The environmental approval documents include the drilling of six developmental wells, though in her speech to the Trinidad & Tobago Parliament in December 2015, Minister of Energy, Nicolle Olivierre, stated that EOG would be drilling five development wells. The jack-up rig for the drilling programme is not identified in the environmental approval documents.
Contracts for the fabrication of the Sercan jacket and deck were awarded in July of 2015, with fabrication work being initiated in August 2015. The environmental approval documents do not state where the fabrication work is taking place, but reports in Upstream newspaper in October 2015 state that the jacket and deck are being fabricated at the Gulf Island fabrication yard in Texas, while temporary living quarters are being built at the LQT Industries yard in Louisiana. A December 2015 press release from McDermott states that they won the contract to transport and install the platform in Trinidad and the contract to fabricate and lay the 14” pipeline. The project will be implemented using McDermott vessels, Derrick Barge 50 and the North Ocean 105.
Previous EOG platforms, Toucan and Oilbird, were fabricated at the TOFCO facility in La Brea, Trinidad. In her presentation to Parliament in December 2015, Minister Olivierre also mentioned that EOG would be implementing a compression project on the Toucan platform in quarter two 2016 and drilling an exploration well in their UA block.