Vietnam unveiling: the Su Tu Vang field is due to start production in September
Su Tu Vang bares teeth
Vietnam's giant Su Tu Vang (Golden Lion) oilfield, set to become Vietnam's largest source of crude over the next three years, it is expected to start production in September with initial output of about 10,000 barrels per day, PetroVietnam officials said.
The output will be gradually raised to 20,000 bpd and 40,000 bpd, a PetroVietnam official said, but declined to provide a timeline for the increase in production.
"The date for first oil is scheduled for mid-September if everything goes as planned," he told Reuters.
Su Tu Vang is operated by state-owned PetroVietnam and US supermajor ConocoPhillips.
The field's massive central processing platform, built by US contractor J Ray McDermott, will have capacity to process 100,000 barrels of oil and 160 million cubic feet of gas per day. The 16,400-tonne platform sits in about 170 feet of water
Output from the field is being tied back to a floating production storage and offloading vessel on the nearby 55,000-bpd Su Tu Den (Black Lion) field.
The Su Tu Den floater has storage capacity of 1 million barrels to handle output from both fields.
The fields, each with estimated recoverable reserves of about 400 million barrels, lie in Vietnam's Block 15.1, together with the Su Tu Trang (White Lion) field dubbed the country's offshore "golden triangle".
Block 15.1 is being developed by the Cuu Long joint operating company, in which PetroVietnam holds a 50% interest, ConocoPhillips 23.25%, Korea National Oil Corporation 14.25%, Korea's SK Corporation 9% and France's Geopetrol 3.5%.