"A lead contender has emerged to provide a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for TotalEnergies’ ultra-deepwater Venus development offshore Namibia. Located in an impressive 3000 metres of water, Venus, according to Namibia's state oil company Namcor, holds some 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil, out of an in-place resource of 5.1 billion barrels. In addition — which is a major development challenge for TotalEnergies — is how to handle the field's huge volumes of associated gas.
Namcor has previously said that, in total, some 8.7 trillion cubic feet of associated gas has been discovered by the French supermajor and Shell, which has made five discoveries in acreage immediately to the east. Following a rash of discoveries in the Orange basin over the last three years, Venus is vying with Galp Energia's proposed Mopane development in shallower water for the accolade of being the first Namibian oil and gas project to come on stream.
Upstream understands that Galp is eyeing a fast-track scheme for Mopane, initially focused on an FPSO, and is also entertaining the possibility of, in future, deploying a floating liquefied natural gas vessel to handle the big volumes of associated gas found on this asset.
In October, TotalEnergies outlined that the FPSO development is expected to be sanctioned in the first or second quarter of 2025, with the target of producing first oil by 2029. Chief executive, Patrick Pouyanne, told analysts at the time that the FPSO would be expected to handle about 160,000 barrels per day of oil and 500 million cubic feet per day of gas. It is likely to be the first of multiple FPSOs that the supermajor aims to deploy at Venus, given the scale of resources found to date.
Sources close to the FPSO bidding process told Upstream that South Korea's Hanwha Ocean has submitted competitive commercial and technical proposals for the FPSO and is currently tipped to land the prestigious contract. Hanwha's proposals, added the sources, have positioned the company ahead of other industry rivals, including Dutch floating production specialist SBM Offshore. Although the tender process is still active, Hanwha’s strong bid has been bolstered by the approval-in-principle of its standardised FPSO design by key classification societies such as the American Bureau of Shipping and Bureau Veritas, Upstream understands."
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