Buckskin Oil Field, Gulf of Mexico

The Buckskin oil field is situated in the Keathley Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico, US, in 6,800ft of water depth. The field covers six lease blocks of the Keathley Canyon including 785, 828, 829, 830, 871 and 872.

LLOG Deepwater Development Company and Buckstone Development Company, both subsidiaries of LLOG, jointly own 33.8% working interest in the project, with LLOG Exploration Offshore being the operator.

Other partners in the project include Repsol E&P USA (22.5%), Beacon Offshore Energy Buckskin LLC (18.7%), Navitas Buckskin US (7.5%), Ridgewood Buckskin (8.75%), and ILX Prospect Buckskin (8.75%).

The field is estimated to contain approximately five billion barrels of oil.

Development drilling at the field was started in January 2018, while the first oil was produced in June 2019.

Discovery and appraisal of Buckskin oil field

The Buckskin oil field was discovered by Repsol with the drilling of the Keathley Canyon 872 #1 well to a depth of 29,404ft in 2009. Drilled by the Stena Drillmax drillship, the well encountered approximately 400ft of the net pay in the Upper Wilcox and Lower Wilcox formations.

The offshore field was appraised by three appraisal wells drilled in Keathley Canyon 785 and 829, which encountered approximately 375ft of high-quality oil pay in the Upper Wilcox formation.

Data collected from the discovery and appraisal wells was assessed to test the potential for the field development.

Buckskin oil field development plan

Two development wells were drilled in Keathley Canyon 829 to a total depth of 29,000ft. The wells are tied-back to the Lucius platform located in Keathley Canyon 875 using a six mile (9.65km)-long subsea tie-back.

The project uses subsea equipment rated to 15,000PSI. The flowlines have a diameter of 8in and are equipped with riser base gas lift.

The Seadrill West Neptune drilling rig was used to drill and complete two of the initial development wells of the project.

Additional wells will be drilled in future phases of the project, along with the installation of new subsea equipment.

Buckskin oil field infrastructure

The Buckskin oil field is developed as a tie-back to the Lucius platform, which is operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.

The platform is a spar-type stationary production unit (SPU) installed in 7,100ft of water. It features a cylindrical hull, which is 110ft in diameter, 605ft-long and weighs 23,000t.

The Lucius platform has a daily production capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil and 12.7 million cubic metres of natural gas.

Key players

WorleyParsons and its subsidiary, INTECSEA, were contracted for the pre-front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase of the project, including the sub-sea architecture and topside facility design.

INTECSEA provided engineering as well as procurement services for the FEED stage of the project.

LLOG contracted Seadrill to provide its West Neptune drilling rig for carrying out drilling at the field.

LLOG contracted TechnipFMC to supply subsea equipment for the Buckskin field.