The BBLT project is located in Angola’s Block 14, which consist of the Benguela-Belize-Lobito-Tomboco fields. The $2.2 billion crude oil and natural gas project is situated within the Lower Congo Basin, and spans 4,000 square kilometers in water depths ranging from 656 to 6,562 feet (200 to 2,000 meters). The project is the second major development in Block 14, which has yielded nine discoveries to-date.

Cabinda Gulf Oil Company Limited is the operator of the block, which is compromised of the following companies: Cabinda Gulf (31 percent), Agip Angola Exploration B.V. (20 percent), Sonangol Pesquisa & Producao, S.A.R.L. (20 percent), TotalFinaElf Exploration & Production, Angola (20 percent) and Galp-Exploracao e Producao Petrolifera, LDA (9 percent).

Field Development

The development was split in two phases, with the first phase consisting of the Benguela and Belize developments. The fields are connected to a compliant piled tower that supports an integrated drilling facility, and includes drilling and completion for more than 30 developments wells from the 40-slots.

Phase two – Lobito-Tomboco – incorporated the construction and installation of three subsea centers, each with a capability to handle nine subsea wells tied-back to the Benguela-Belize drilling and production platform and compliant tower.

First oil from the development commenced on June 7, 2006 and it produces roughly 245,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

Contracts

Daewoo was awarded an $820 million contract from Mustang, for engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the project's production facilities, CPT, and the oil and gas export pipelines.

The topside modules, built at Daewoo’s Okpo yard in South Korea, have an operating weight of 43,500 tons. Delta Engineering fabricated the 157-man accommodation module at its yard in Channelview, Texas. Sonamet constructed the drilling template, piles, flare boom, and helideck, which all weigh over 1,600 tons, at its yard in Lobito, Angola. Included in the topsides equipment are the facilities to handle 420,000 b/d of water re-injection.

For the subsea part of the project, Subsea 7 won the $270m contract for the 10km tieback of three subsea drill centers to the CPT. The work included fabrication and installation of the steel pipelines, flowline jumpers, connectors and umbilicals, as well as installation of the subsea manifolds. The steel flowlines were fabricated at the spoolbase in Luanda and the installation work was assigned to the pipelay vessel Skandi Navica. Vetco Gray carried out the three-year, $125 million contract for 22 horizontal subsea trees, six manifolds, and the fully integrated subsea and surface control systems. The 80 ton subsea manifolds (three production and three water injection) were built at Lobito, Angola, for Vetco.