It comes as no surprise that the top three largest offshore oil fields in the world are located in the Persian Gulf - two of them operated by Saudi Arabia and one by UAE. Brazil's Santos Basin and the Caspian Sea contain the other two giant oil fields. Sources profiles the largest offshore fields by estimated recoverable reserves.
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Safaniya - largest offshore oil field in the world
Safaniya field in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia,
is the world's largest offshore field. It is owned and operated by Saudi
Aramco, the national oil and natural gas Company of Saudi Arabia. The field is
believed to contain an estimated total reserve of more than 50 billion barrels.
The recoverable oil reserves at the field are reportedly estimated to be up to
36 billion barrels.
Safaniya was discovered in 1951 and has been in
production since 1957. It is operated with more than 624 production wells and a
series of different platforms. Daily production capacity of the heavy crude oil
producing field is up to 1.5 million barrels.
Saudi Aramco is currently implementing a Master
Development Plan to sustain the production capability of the ageing field. The
development plan includes expansion and upgrade of the field's crude-gathering
and transport capacity, and the installation of electric submersible pumps
(ESPs) for artificial lifting of crude.
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| Zakum Oil Field |
Upper Zakum
Upper Zakum oil field, located 84km north-west of
Abu Dhabi Islands, United Arab Emirates (UAE), in the Persian Gulf, is the
second largest offshore oil field in the world. The offshore oil field
reportedly contains around 50 billion barrels of oil in total with an estimated
recoverable oil reserve of up to 21 billion barrels.
The Upper Zakum field was discovered in 1963 and
brought on stream in 1967. It is owned and operated by Zakum Development
Company (ZADCO), which is a joint venture of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
(ADNOC-60%), ExxonMobil (28%) and Japan Oil Development Company (JODCO-12%).
The current production capacity of the field is
500,000 barrels of crude a day. The crude oil from Upper Zakum is sent for
further processing, storage and export to the Zirku Island located 140km
north-west of Abu Dhabi.
The oil field is currently undergoing an upgrade
worth more than $10bn to increase its daily production to 750,000 barrels by
2015 and sustain the same for 25 years.
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| Manifa Oil Field |
Manifa
Manifa oil field, located south-east of the
Safaniya field in the shallow waters of Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, is reported
to contain an estimated recoverable oil reserve of up to 13 billion barrels. It
is a heavy crude oil producing offshore field owned and operated by Saudi
Aramco.
Manifa field was discovered in 1957. It started
production in 1964 with a daily capacity of 200,000 barrels. It was brought
offline in 1984 due to reduced demand for its heavy crude. Saudi Aramco made an
investment decision in 2007 to restart production from Manifa, with increased
capacity as the oil price exceeded $70 per barrel.
The front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the
Manifa crude oil field development was completed by the end of 2007. The first
phase of production started in April 2013. The production is expected to reach
500,000 barrels a day by the end of 2013 and 900,000 barrels a day by the end
of 2014.
Kashagan
Kashagan oil field is located 80km south-east of
Atyrau in the North Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, and is the largest offshore field
outside the Middle East. The field contains more than 35 billion barrels of oil
in total and an estimated recoverable oil reserve of nine billion barrels. It
was discovered in 2000 and commercial development was announced in 2002.
The field is being developed in phases by the North
Caspian Sea Production Sharing Agreement (NCSPSA) consortium comprised of KMG
(KazMunayGas-16.81%), Eni (16.81%), ExxonMobil (16.81%), Shell (16.81%), Total
(16.81%), ConocoPhillips (8.40%) and INPEX (7.56%).
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The total cost of the offshore project is more than
$100bn. First oil production from Kashagan is expected in 2013 with an initial
output of 180,000 barrels per day. The production is expected to peak at 1.5
million barrels a day by 2021.
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| Lula oil field |
Lula
The Lula field, earlier known as the Tupi field, is
a major pre-salt oil discovery in the Santos Basin, Brazil. It was discovered
by a consortium led by Petrobras in 2007. The estimated recoverable oil reserve
in the Lula field as of 2010 stood at 6.5 billion barrels.
Petrobras operates the Lula field with a 65% stake.
BG Group and Galp Energia hold 25% and ten percent stakes respectively.
Production from the first phase of pilot production project in the Lula field
began in 2010. Production from the north-east area of Lula field started in
2011.
The second phase of the pilot production project is currently underway and will extend beyond 2017. The total development cost of the field is expected to exceed $100bn.
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