ExxonMobil said the FPSO vessel will be designed as an Early Production System (EPS), which would allow it to economically develop offshore resources with less development time between discovery and first production.
"The EPS offers a significant shortening of time between discovery and oil production by as much as two to four years," said the president of the ExxonMobil Development Company, Morris Foster.
"This strategy provides us greater flexibility for future offshore developments, and reduces costs by standardizing one design and utilizing nearly identical equipment from one vessel to another.
"By utilising these general-purpose FPSOs to commercialize our significant portfolio of offshore developments, we are able to deploy a safe and environmentally sound production system long before custom-design facilities can be ready, allowing the resource to come on-stream in a shorter time frame."
ExxonMobil said the flexibility and portability of FPSOs make them particularly well suited for early production operations. Through early production, the company said it can obtain additional data needed to validate the performance of large, complex reservoirs.
As mentioned earlier, ExxonMobil will utilise an EPS for the Xikomba development in Angola. The Xikomba field in Angola's Block 15 was discovered in 1999 and has estimated recoverable resources of approximately 100 million barrels of oil with a target production of 80,000 barrels per day.
Located in the northwest corner of Angola Block 15, about 370km northwest of Luanda, the project will develop the Xikomba discovery in water depths of 4,000-5,000 feet.
The Xikomba development project will consist of nine subsea wells tied back to a FPSO. First oil is scheduled for latter half of next year, making it the first oil production on the Esso-operated block. "The Xikomba project development is an example of our ability to bring new discoveries into production quickly," Mr Morris said.
In addition to Esso (operator, 40 %), other participants in Block 15 are BP Exploration (Angola) Limited (26.67%), Agip Angola Exploration B.V. (20%), and Statoil Angola (13.33%). Sonangol is the concessionaire.
