Mad Dog 2 oil platform undergoes work at Kiewit in Ingleside
A 60,000-ton floating production unit (aka oil drilling platform) recently pulled up to a dock in Ingleside in final preparation for installation in a BP oil field in the Gulf of Mexico. The Argos FPU ended a two-month-long trip from South Korea to the Kiewit Offshore Services fabrication yard April 12. More than 15 million person-hours went into building the $9 billion platform at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea.
Final destination is about 200 miles south of New Orleans. The unit will have traveled 15,000 miles when it finally stops in the Gulf. It was carried on the back of the Boskalis BOKA Vanguard heavy transport vessel.
While at Ingleside, it will support about 800 jobs as it is fully prepped for installation. About 250 jobs will be involved in operating the platform.
Once fully installed in the Gulf, the Argos platform will be able to produce 140,000 barrels of oil per day, pumping it up from the Mad Dog Oil Field through 4,500 feet of water. It is expected to begin production in the second quarter of 2022.
BP has been pumping from the Mad Dog Oil Field since 2005, when it installed its first oil platform there. That facility can produce up to 80,000 barrels of oil and 60 million gross cubit-feet of natural gas a day. The field is capable of producing double that, according to new company estimates, up to more than 4 billion barrels, which is why a new platform is headed that way.
The company currently has four operating platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The Argos will be the first new platform since 2008 when Thunder Horse began production. It will increase BP production in the region by 25 percent.
On April 20, 2010, a BP oil platform, the Deepwater Horizon, exploded, killing 11 workers and causing the largest marine oil spill in history just 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It was installed in the Macondo oil prospect.
