Vallourec to supply steel tubes for oil project off coast of Angola

French tubemaker Vallourec has been awarded a contract to supply Total E&P Angola with 27,000 tonnes of steel tubes for the Kaombo oil field, located off the coast of the West African country, the company said on Friday November 14.

November 14, 2014

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Vallourec will produce cases and tubes for the project at its facilities in France, Indonesia and Brazil, and is due to complete the first batch in December 2014. The value of the contract was not disclosed.

The Kaombo oil field, located 150km off the Angolan coast, is composed of 59 wells in depths of 1,400-2,000m of water. They are expected to reach drilling depths of up to 5,000m.

Drilling operations for the project, one of the largest oil developments operated by Total in the area, will start in the third quarter of 2015. The project is expected to last until 2021.

Kaombo presents difficult drilling conditions, with a third of the wells requiring drilling through salt layers to reach target depths.

“Following [other] large projects in Western Africa, this new contract demonstrates Vallourec’s capacity to support the development of the most challenging offshore projects,” said Didier Hornet, director of the oil country tubular goods (OCTG) and drilling business at Vallourec.