Tullow Oil on Thursday revealed that it is sending one of the world’s leading floating deep-water oil production platforms to West Africa to produce crude for at most 20 years.

According to Tullow’s COO, Paul McDade (photo), the 340-m long production vessel which was named after late Ghanaian president Prof John Evans Atta Mills, was rehabilitated in Singapore from a very large crude carrier super-tanker. The vessel is expected to sail to Ghana this weekend, where it is to gradually increase production from the TEN deepwater oilfield from July to August 2016.

“We are very much on schedule for a July/August gradual start of production. The aim is to hit peak production in early 2017,” McDade said.

The TEN oil field situated off the coast of Ghana, lies at a water depth of 1,000-2,000m. While Tullow plans to have a peak production of about 50,000 bpd, the field has the capacity to produce 80,000 bpd of light sweet crude quality similar to Brent.

Tullow initially produces similar grade crude from the offshore Jubilee oilfield, but it is confident that once the TEN and Jubilee were at full production, their joint output would reach 100,000 bpd in early 2017.

“In Ghana, we're kind of blessed with high quality, low cost assets,” McDade told E&P news adding that Tullow’s total cash operating expenditures were about $15 per barrel.

Anita Fatunji