Kitchen Lights platform completed

Construction of Furie Operating Alaska’s Kitchen Lights platform offshore in Cook Inlet has been completed, Bruce Webb, Furie senior vice president, told Petroleum News in an Aug. 4 email. The platform, located about 10 miles northwest of Boulder Point, near Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula, will support production from Furie’s Kitchen Lights gas field.

After the heavy lift vessel MV Svenja placed the platform’s monopod caisson onto the seafloor in early June, the team installing the platform had to insert pilings into the seafloor and cement the seafloor assembly to hold the caisson in place. With the cement having hardened, the Svenja could then place the topside decks onto the caisson, an operation that has now been completed (see photo).

Furie had already finished the laying of a pipeline that will carry gas from the platform to an onshore processing facility, from where utility-grade gas will be delivered into the Kenai Peninsula gas pipeline network. Construction of the facility has also been completed. And, on July 29 the Regulatory Commission of Alaska approved the connection of Furie’s facility to the nearby Kenai Beluga Pipeline.

Furie has now to hook up the subsea pipeline to the platform, Webb said.

The company has then to test all of the equipment needed to operate the field. That testing will include pressure testing of the pipeline. However, before starting the subsequent commissioning of the field, probably in November, the company must install a workover rig on the platform and then tie the production well to the gas pipeline. Production will start from the Kitchen Lights No. 3 well that Furie drilled in 2013.

Furie anticipates gas production starting at the beginning of January 2016, when the first of the company’s gas supply contracts with its customers comes into play. The company hopes for an initial production rate of 85 million cubic feet of gas, depending on what supply contracts the company has in place by field startup.

- ALAN BAILEY