Construction work began recently on the floating platform to produce oil from Chevron’s Tahiti field in the Gulf of Mexico, where Statoil has a 25 per cent holding.
The hull and mooring systems are being fabricated by Technip at Pori in Finland, while the topsides modules will be delivered from Gulf Marine Fabricators at Corpus Christi, Texas.
Tahiti is being developed with subsea installations tied back to a spar floater in a first development phase sanctioned by the partners in August.
This is costed at roughly USD 1.8 billion, while total investment in the full development is put at about USD 3.5 billion.
Due to be delivered in the summer of 2007, the platform will have a daily production capacity of 125,000 barrels of oil and two million cubic metres of gas.
Tahiti lies in 1,220 metres of water about 300 kilometres south-west of New Orleans. Recoverable reserves are estimated at 400-500 million barrels.
The field is expected to come on stream in the summer of 2008.
In addition to Statoil, operator Chevron has a 58 per cent interest while Shell holds 17 per cent.