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Perdido Development Project

The Perdido Development, located in an isolated, ultra-deep sector of the Gulf of Mexico, is the world’s deepest offshore drilling and production facility.

“Perdido’s floating production facility can be expanded to serve the future potential in the area, and we can apply the technology and expertise utilized at Perdido to other similarly challenging environments in the future.” Marvin Odum, Upstream Americas Director, Shell Energy Resources Company

Marvin Odum, Upstream Americas Director, Shell Energy Resources Company

Perdido marks a new era in innovation and safely unlocks domestic sources of energy for US consumers. The facility sits in approximately 2,450 meters (8,000 feet) of water, which is roughly equivalent to six Empire State Buildings stacked one atop the other, and will access reservoirs deep beneath the ocean floor.

The Perdido Development will ramp up to annual peak production of more than 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Perdido fast facts:

One day’s production from Perdido is equivalent to the energy needed to fuel 500 cars for 15 years

First commercial production from the Lower Tertiary reservoir in the Gulf of Mexico

First Gulf of Mexico full host utilizing subsea separation and boosting to remove about 2,000 psi of backpressure on the wells

First spar with wet tree Direct Vertical Access (DVA) wells in water more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) deep

Located 320 kilometers (200 miles) from the Texas coast in Alaminos Canyon Block 857

The Perdido spar was designed to initially process production from three fields: Great White, Silvertip, and Tobago

Joint venture owners of the Perdido spar are Shell (operator), Chevron, and BP

The Great White field represents about 80% of Perdido’s total estimated production

Perdido’s project life is expected to be about 20 years

Construction of the Perdido host spar began in late 2006

Topsides were mated with the spar in a single lift in early 2009

Production started on March 31, 2010. Production was shut-in from April, 2010 until September, 2010 due to gas compression and gas pipeline availability.

Since September, production has been increasing. The ramp-up of production has been driven by performance of the new subsea separation technology and well availability

As of June 1, 2011 a total of 7 wells are available for production (5 Great White wells and 2 Silvertip wells). Currently, 5 wells are on production due to facility limits and downstream constraints. Current production is approximately 38,000 bbls oil/day and 60 mmcfg/day

The H&P205 drilling rig is located on the Perdido spar. It is currently active in a multi-year drilling and completion campaign to develop the Great White field