SBM Offshore Delivers Trion Turret Buoy From China to Mexico

Dutch offshore infrastructure group SBM Offshore has delivered a disconnectable turret mooring buoy and associated equipment from China to Altamira, Mexico, for the $10.4 billion Trion oil development, with the cargo travelling by way of the Panama Canal.

The shipment included large suction piles, chains and other mooring components alongside the disconnectable turret mooring (DTM) buoy itself. Altamira's own port records place the Netherlands-flagged heavy-lift ship Happy Star at the API2 berth between 6 and 10 August, its cargo entered as the Trion project buoy, with the Norway-flagged semi-submersible barge Boabarge 30 also working the same operation.

Once installed, the buoy connects to Chalchi, the floating storage and offloading vessel SBM Offshore is building for the field under a 20-year lease to Woodside Energy. Trion was 64 percent complete at the end of June, with three wells drilled from a planned 24-well programme and subsea equipment deliveries to Mexico already under way ahead of installation work scheduled for the third quarter. Fabrication and testing of the DTM buoy itself has also been completed.

The field lies in the Gulf of Mexico's Perdido Fold Belt, roughly 180 km offshore and close to the maritime line with the US, in water some 2,500 metres deep. It is designed around a semi-submersible floating production unit with capacity for about 100,000 barrels of oil a day, with production transferred to Chalchi, which is designed to store roughly 950,000 barrels. First oil is targeted for 2028.

Pemex, Mexico's state oil company, has estimated total investment in Trion at $10.4 billion. Woodside's 2023 final investment decision was based on forecast capital expenditure of $7.2 billion, of which $4.8 billion is attributable to Woodside, excluding forecast lease payments for the FSO. Woodside holds a 60 percent operating interest in the project, with Pemex holding the remaining 40 percent.