Big Foot reaches production

Chevron’s troubled Big Foot tension leg platform got its final pre-production inspection from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Nov. 15; and saw its first oil five days later, according to BSEE. Big Foot is located in the Gulf of Mexico about 225 miles south of New Orleans. The platform was originally scheduled to go into production in 2014. But strong Gulf loop currents delayed its arrival for months, and then a major failure of the mooring system – nine of 16 tendons and buoys sank - putting the project on hold. The platform had to be towed back to South Texas while the company investigated the failure of equipment used to latch the steel platform to GoM’s seafloor. BSEE’s mission is to ensure offshore oil and gas companies operate in a safe and environmentally sustainable way, says Amy Pellegrin, BSEE’s Houma (La.) District acting district manager in announcing the inspection results. Big Foot is the second deepwater production facility to come online in the Houma district in 2018. Big Foot’s mooring tendons needed to be able to better withstand the loop current - open waters of the Caribbean, Yucatan Channel and through the Gulf of Mexico. With each physical inspection, BSEE confirmed that Chevron’s schematics, diagrams and plans were “accurate and that the systems would operate as designed,” says Pellegrin. Big Foot is located in the Walker Ridge 29 area of the GoM in about 5,200 feet of water. It has a production capacity up to 75,000 bbls. of oil and 25M cubic feet of gas per day. (Source: Work Boat 12/11/18)