Heavy lift vessel arrives for install Furie’s Kitchen Lights monopod first Cook Inlet platform since 2000; pipe already delivered, onshore facilities work under way Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The SAL MV Svenja, a heavy lift vessel, was in Homer at the end of July, on its way to begin work installing Furie Operating Alaska’s offshore platform at its Kitchen Lights unit in Cook Inlet.
Furie President Damon Kade told Petroleum News in a July 31 email that offshore installation “will be commencing over the next 3-5 days.” Kade said the template which will be installed over the KLU No. 3 well prior to pile installation is also in Homer.
A picture which Damon provided in an Aug. 4 email shows the heavy lift vessel and the template to be set on the KLU No. 3 well.
KLU Platform A will be the 17th Cook Inlet platform, and the first new platform in the inlet since Forcenergy installed the Osprey platform at Redoubt Shoal in 2000.
Pipe for the gas gathering system from the platform to shore arrived earlier and is staged at Port MacKenzie; work is under way at the project’s onshore gas processing facilities near Nikiski.
Natural gas production is expected to begin by the end of the year.
Template to be used Kade told Petroleum News earlier in July that platform installation will begin with the placement of the template over the KLU 3 well on the seafloor, to act as a guide for driving the first piles in place. Placement will be done by cranes on the ML Svenja.
Once the template is removed, the monopod’s caisson will be lowered into position using the initial piles as guides; then additional piles will be installed to secure the platform structure into position.
Furie drilled three exploration wells and a sidetrack well in the Corsair block since it began drilling in 2011 and has begun drilling an exploration well, KLU 4, in the North Block.
The Corsair block is in the central portion of the Kitchen Lights unit and the platform will be some 10 miles northwest of Boulder Point, near Nikiski.
In its May operating plan approval the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas, said the Kitchen Lights unit is expected to initially produce up to 200 million cubic feet per day of natural gas for delivery into the Southcentral Alaska gas distribution system. The division’s approval is for surface operations on the part of the unit area consisting of state oil and gas lease ADL 389197.
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