"TotalEnergies has unveiled the full technical details of its challenging ultra-deep water Venus project offshore Namibia, including the design specifications of its big floating production, storage and offloading vessel and equally impressive subsea system. Located in 3000 metres of water in the Orange basin, Venus will be developed by up to 40 subsea wells tied back to an FPSO that can handle peak output of 160,000 barrels per day of oil. A final investment decision is set to be taken in 2026, targeting first oil in late 2029 or early 2030, with all but a small portion of the development’s produced gas to be reinjected in order to provide critical reservoir support.
Last month, the supermajor published environmental documentation that offered a skeletal view of the project’s big subsea system, which is expected to have a seabed footprint of 165 square kilometres. On Wednesday, in its latest filing to Namibia's government as it seeks environmental clearance for a project of national significance, TotalEnergies added flesh to this initial subsea skeleton while also providing clarity on the FPSO specifications. These technical details will be pored over by contractors' engineers and procurement specialists — and compared with what they have already been advised by the supermajor — as they gear up to take part in bid processes this year for the subsea and FPSO hardware.
One well-placed source told Upstream last week that TotalEnergies is expected to launch design competitions in the third quarter of 2025 for two packages — the subsea production system and the subsea umbilical, flowline and riser system. As for the FPSO, Upstream reported previously that Hanwha and SBM Offshore were the top contenders to supply Venus' first FPSO - there could be more than one. TotalEnergies expects that half the project's wells will be oil producers, with the remainder being gas re-injectors, according to a 379-page draft scoping report (DSR), the precursor to a full-blown environmental and social impact assessment. The wells will all be drilled to a depth of about 3000 metres below the seabed."
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