Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Jack-up rig begins its big move south
A large jack up rig working off the North Taranaki coast is on the move.
The rig ended a three-month well works and maintenance programme at the Pohokura offshore platform in early May and preparations were started to decouple from the platform.
The COSL-operated BOSS rig, contracted to Austria-based exploration company OMV, could be seen from New Plymouth on Tuesday being towed south to Admiralty Bay in the Marlborough Sounds where it will be loaded onto a heavy lift vessel to leave New Zealand.
The wells and maintenance programme will ensure a more efficient delivery of gas from the platform, an OMV spokesman said.
The decoupling of the rig had meant an 18 day intermittent outage of the offshore wells but the onshore wells were not affected.
The company’s programme had progressed steadily since the rig arrived in Taranaki in February as work was completed on two wells and platform maintenance.
Some time was required to complete the work and the programme took advantage of the rig being onsite to complete additional maintenance, he said.
Full production from the offshore wells was targeted for midMay.
The Pohokura gas field is 16 kilometres long and five kilometres wide and the largest natural gas resource in the country, producing about 40 per cent of the gas required for energy generation.
The field has five offshore wells and three onshore wells linked by the onshore Pohokura Production Station.
It is the only field in the country to have no personnel on site, instead being controlled remotely from a small office at OMV’s building in New Plymouth.