Lukoil reports completion of two supporting blocks weighing a total of 5,000 tons to be towed out soon to Vladimir Filanovsky oil field in the northern Caspian Sea (OGJ Online, Oct. 8, 2012).
The blocks will be set in 7 m of water for the ice-resistant drilling and production platform.
The supporting blocks were built at the LOTOS shipyard in Astrakhan in Russia’s Republic of Kalmykiya. Each block is 28.3 m long, 23.7 m wide, and 16.4 m high. Twenty 2-m-diameter piles driven to depths of 60 m will secure the blocks to the seabed.
Astrakhan Shipbuilding Production Association is building the drilling and production platform’s topsides, which will be attached to the supporting blocks in mid-2014.
The platform will support drilling of 11 directional wells. It will be bridge-linked to a central processing platform and accommodation module.
