Under the contract, McDermott will provide engineering services, including concept selection and follow-on pre-FEED for the Zama field development project, located in Block 7 in the Sureste Basin.
The contract will be executed by the company alongside io oil & gas consulting, a joint venture it formed with Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE).
io oil & gas consulting will identify a final concept solution based on which McDermott will deliver the follow-on pre-FEED services for the Zama field development project.
McDermott revealed that work on the concept selection has commenced and expects it to be wrapped up in the third quarter 2019.
McDermott North, Central and South America senior vice president Richard Heo said: “The Zama discovery is a significant and historic project for Mexico, and our customer, Talos Energy.
“Early engagement during the conceptual and pre-FEED phases is a strategy that is proving beneficial to our customers. With high estimated oil production, designing an efficient concept solution, in combination with the integrated pre-FEED studies, allows us to help Talos maximize the value of this important greenfield project.”
The Zama oil discovery was made in July 2017 through the drilling of the Zama-1 exploratory well. The offshore Mexican oil field, which is contained in water depth of around 165m, is believed to hold 1.4-2.0 billion gross barrels of oil.
Talos Energy estimates the Zama field to have 400-800 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent (MBOE), with an estimated peak production of around 150 MBOE/day.
Appraisal activities related to the Zama field development project are scheduled for late 2018 with the drilling of two additional wells with first oil anticipated to be produced by 2022.
Talos Energy, the operator of Block 7 with a stake of 35%, is partnered by Sierra Oil and Gas (40%) and Premier Oil (25%).
In late September, Talos Energy was granted approval from the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) for its appraisal plan for the Zama oil discovery. Prior to that, Talos Energy and its partners gave a contract to a subsidiary of Ensco to deploy the Ensco 8503 semi-submersible rig to execute the appraisal plan as part of the Zama field development project.
