The topsides, which include a production deck and helideck, are 15m wide and 37m high, and weigh about 470 tonnes. They were fabricated in Thailand by Thai Nippon Steel and arrived at the New Plymouth port aboard the heavy lift vessel SAL Paula during the weekend.
The 8397-tonne Paula is the identical sister ship to the SAL Annegret that last year came from Fremantle with the 415t jacket for the more northern Pohokura gas-condensate project.
The Teras Transporter barge has remained in port since it arrived with the 550t Kupe jacket – also fabricated by Thai Nippon Steel in Thailand – last August.
Once the barge has transported the topsides to the development drilling wellsite, the jack-up Ensco Rig 107 will lift the topsides into place before it drills the project’s three production wells.
Origin Energy Kupe project director Peter Ashford described the arrival of the topsides module as the third important milestone for the $NZ1.08 billion ($A907 million) project.
Firstly, there was the arrival of the jacket and then, last week, a traditional Maori blessing, or karakia, was held onboard the jack-up rig to formally bless the Ensco 107.
“Once the topsides are installed the offshore platform will be complete and work can focus on the drilling campaign,” Ashford said.
The Kupe project is expected to be completed by mid-2009 and will provide New Zealand with about 254 petajoules of natural gas, 1.1 million tonnes of LPG and 14.7 million barrels of condensate.
The Kupe partners are operator Origin (50%), integrated energy company Genesis Energy (31%), New Zealand Oil & Gas (15%), and Mitsui E&P NZ (4%).
