BP’s Greater Tortue Ahmeyim FLNG project located offshore Mauritania and Senegal continues to progress towards the start of production next year after the completion of 21 giant caissons that make up a breakwater for the development.
France’s Eiffage Genie Civil said in a statement last week it had completed the construction of 21 mega caissons at its Dakar site in Senegal.
The caissons, 16 of which have already been installed, would constitute the breakwater that would protect the project’s FLNG and LNG carriers offshore the coast of Saint-Louis, it said.
To build them, two plants operated by the Eiffage group produced more than 130,000 cubic meters of concrete.
Each caisson weighs 16,000 tonnes, is 55 m long, 28 meters wide, and 32 meters high, the firm said. The construction process required more than 1,700 workers.
According to Eiffage, the contractor would now work on constructing berthing facilities for the FLNG and LNG carriers.
Gimi FLNG
Eiffage and Italy’s Saipem won the contract from BP for the Tortue development back in 2019.
The hub is located some ten kilometers from shore and includes the berthing facilities for the FLNG and the breakwater.
According to BP, the Tortue/Ahmeyim gas field, located offshore on the border between Mauritania and Senegal, has about 15 trillion cubic feet of gas.
The project’s FPSO will process the gas, removing heavier hydrocarbon components, prior to delivering it to the floating LNG provider which will be located at the hub.
Furthermore, Singapore’s Keppel shipyard is currently converting Golar’s Gimi FLNG for the project.
Golar said in November the FLNG was 75 percent technically complete. The yard should deliver the unit in 2023.
Once deployed offshore Mauritania and Senegal, it would provide about 2.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum on average.
Besides operator BP and Kosmos Energy, the project includes national oil companies Petrosen and SMHPM.
