Umm Lulu field is located in the Arabian Gulf, 30km north-west of Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The offshore oil field is being developed by Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (Adma-Opco), a joint venture (JV) of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc, 60%), BP (14.67%), Total (13.33%) and Japan Oil Development Company (Jodco, 12%).
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The field development was divided into two phases, with estimated investments of more than $2.5bn.
Production from the field began in October 2014 using existing facilities of the nearby Umm Al-Dalkh Oil Field. The development of the second phase of the project started in September 2018.
The field is expected to produce up to 105,000 barrels of crude oil a day (bpd) when fully developed, supporting the ADNOC’s aim to increase output from three million barrels of oil per day (MMbpd) to 5MMbpd by 2030.
Umm Lulu field development
The front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the project was completed in 2011 while the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for both phases was awarded by August 2013. The Umm Lulu field development is part of the plan to increase Abu Dhabi’s total crude oil production to 3.5 million barrels a day. The production target follows the agreed respective quota by the oil-producing member countries of OPEC.
Nasr and Satah Al Razboot (SARB), two other offshore fields operated by Adma-Opco, were also developed along with Umm Lulu as part of the plan to add 300,000bpd of crude oil production with the development of the three fields. The plan was to increase its daily crude oil production capacity from 600,000bpd to approximately one million barrels by 2020.
ADNOC awarded a 20% interest with a contractual term of 40 years in SARB and Umm Lulu offshore concession to OMV, an Austrian oil company, in April 2018. OMV joined Cepsa, a Spanish integrated oil and gas company, which also holds a 20% stake in the concession area.
OMV started production from the Umm Lulu and SARB fields in September 2018 with an initial capacity of 50,000bpd and is expected to increase to 215,000bpd by 2023.
ADNOC started manufacturing and exporting a new crude grade known as Umm Lulu in October 2018, pumped from the Umm Lulu and SARB offshore fields.
The National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) completed the construction of a new 35,274t Umm Lulu gas treatment platform (ULGTP) in June 2019 under its Phase II contract.
ADNOC completed the drilling of the first offshore integrated drilling services (IDS) well at the Umm Lulu field in September 2019.
Umm Lulu offshore field project details
The Umm Lulu field development involves two phases. The first phase of development included the initial production through the brownfield modification of two existing wellhead towers.
The full field development (Phase II) involves the installation of six new wellhead towers and the construction of a super-complex consisting of six bridge-linked platforms, including gas treatment, separation, riser, utility, accommodation, water disposal and two flare platforms.
The new gas treatment platform is primarily responsible for the compression, dehydration and sweetening of gas. The six platforms, associated jackets, flares and bridges will reach over 66,000t in weight. The platforms are being installed using the float-over method, which entails a major portion of hook-up and pre-commissioning work completed onshore before load-out into the sea. The work also includes 90km of infield subsea pipelines, 125km of main oil lines and 100km of fibre-optic cables.
The fluid output of the field is transferred via an export pipeline to Zirku Island for processing. Umm Lulu will is tied into Adma-Opco’s Satah Al Razboot (SARB) offshore oil field for processing the output at the Zirku Island facilities.
Contractors involved
Fluor was awarded the FEED contract for the project in the first quarter of 2010.
The international engineering and project management company AMEC was awarded the project management consultancy (PMC) services contract for the Umm Lulu Phase I execution in March 2012.
The NPCC of the UAE was awarded the EPC contract for the first phase of the project in June 2013.
A consortium of NPCC and Technip was awarded a $1.69bn EPC contract for the Umm Lulu Phase II in August 2013.
Technip’s share in the contract is 35% with Technip responsible for engineering while NPCC was responsible for the fabrication and installation of processing facilities at the field.
AMEC won awarded a five-year project management contract worth $124m for Phase II in December 2013.
GE Oil & Gas was contracted for the supply of gas turbine generator sets, gas lift compressors and gas injection compressors based on GE’s advanced PGT25+ Aeroderivative gas turbine technology. The package also comprises GE’s highly reliable compressors.
Shawcor supplied Factory Grade™ GTS-PP and GTS-PE field-applied girth-weld coating solutions for 65km of 3LPP and 129km of 3LPE coated pipe, respectively. Shawcor also provided operator training and induction heating equipment to the subsea lay contractor.
