Cal Dive takes 20% stake in Independence Hub gas project

Ray Tyson

Marine construction company Cal Dive International has taken a 20 percent interest in the $385 million Independence Hub, which will serve as a central production platform for seven anchor fields in the remote eastern Gulf of Mexico, according to Enterprise Products Partners.

Enterprise, a leading provider of midstream energy services, was selected to design, construct and install the hub on behalf of field owners Anadarko Petroleum, Kerr-McGee, Devon Energy, Dominion Exploration & Production and Spinnaker Exploration.

The platform actually will be operated by Anadarko, the largest stakeholder with major interests in four of the seven anchor fields: Atlas, Atlas NW, Jubilee and Spiderman. The other anchor fields are Merganser, Vortex and San Jacinto.

The Atwater Valley Producers Group concluded early on that none of the anchor fields to be included in the hub project was large enough to justify its own stand-alone production facility.

Cal Dive took a similar equity position in the Anadarko-operated Marco Polo development in the Central Gulf, where the production platform is jointly owned by Cal Dive and GulfTerra Energy Partners.

The 105 foot deep draft, semi-submersible Independence Hub platform will be capable of processing 850 million cubic feet of gas per day. The facility also will have excess payload capacity to tie back up to 10 additional fields.

Independence Hub, to be located on Mississippi Canyon Block 920, will be moored in about 8,000 feet of water, qualifying it as the deepest development in the U.S. Gulf. It will process gas from fields located in nearby Atwater Valley, DeSoto Canyon and Lloyd Ridge.

The producers also have dedicated future production from a number of undeveloped blocks in the eastern Gulf area for processing.

Key engineering and fabrication contracts for the Independence Hub platform already have been awarded.