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Helix Producer I joins BP's Gulf of Mexico spill response operations
June 23,
2010
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Helix Energy Solutions Group has announced that its Floating Production Unit Helix Producer I has been contracted by BP Exploration & Production Company (BP) to assist in BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill response operations.
Helix Producer I will be part of BP's containment plan to capture and process oil and gas from the Macondo well and to offload such oil and gas to a tanker. HPI will join two other contracting services vessels owned by Helix, Express and Q4000, in supporting BP on the Deepwater Horizon spill response and containment operations.
It is expected that Helix Producer I will significantly increase capability of oil capture. BP claims to be capturing 18,000 barrels of oil per day and expects to be able to increase capture capacity to 28,000 barrels, corresponding exactly to the capacity of Helix Producer I, which is capable of producing 30,000 barrels of oil per day. The HPI is expected to support BP's efforts for a minimum of 60 days.
Latest bad news on the scope of the worst oil spill in US history coming from scientists serving on a government-sponsored committee suggest that spill rate may be far worse than latest estimate arriving to 60,000 barrels per day, meaning that total 540 million litres of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico during the last two months since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.
The HPI is a conversion of Kommandor 5000, which served as a train ferry. The conversion was undertaken at the Viktor Lenac Shipyard from 2006 to 2008. The FPU, owned by Helix Energy Solutions Group, was outfitted in US yard last year.